


The Way It All Works

by Siggy1998



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Child Abuse, Eren is Harry, F/M, M/M, annie and thomas kinda fill the spaces of crabbe and goyle, armin is hermione and ron, basically all the kids are snk characters and all the adults are hp characters, but she'll be a badass ron eventually i promise, i don't know how to write anything but angst, im american so please excuse any inaccuracies about british culture, jean is also draco, levi is draco and some other character but idk who, mikasa is ron basically, my oc is harry and hermione and neville, my oc's name is ridiculous, nobody fully matches up with a harry potter character tbh, sexual content in the fourth chapter, there are more characters but can i name them all right now? no
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 07:33:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10715037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siggy1998/pseuds/Siggy1998
Summary: "Zoralee doesn’t even know what Hogwarts is until two weeks before the school term starts. She and her parents are preparing for another year of school outside London – she’s going into Year Eight even though she’s only just turned eleven – shopping for new jeans and sneakers and the like, not to mention going to a few last minute therapy appointments to work on her social skills. Then one day there comes a knock at the door and her whole world turns upside down with a single letter sealed with red wax."The Wizarding World is in for a shock.





	1. First Year: Zoralee Durmango and the Year of Isolation

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically my self-indulgent attempt at placing SNK characters into the Harry Potter plotline. Also, I spent a solid thirty minutes trying to come up with a decent summary before I sad "fuck it" and just put a quote from the first chapter in the box.

FIRST YEAR

            She doesn’t even know what Hogwarts is until two weeks before the school term starts. She and her parents are preparing for another year of school outside London – she’s going into Year Eight even though she’s only just turned eleven – shopping for new jeans and sneakers and the like, not to mention going to a few last minute therapy appointments to work on her social skills. Then one day there comes a knock at the door and her whole world turns upside down with a single letter sealed with red wax.

            The two weeks before term starts go by in a whirl. There’s a visit to a place called Diagon Alley, where she gets her escort, a man named Hagrid, to exchange her Muggle money for Galleons and where she picks up her school supplies. There are several sleepless nights spent reading her new textbooks. There are hours spent staring at her new wand – _thirteen inches, quite rigid, beech wood with a phoenix feather core_ , Mr. Ollivander tells her. _You’re destined for great things_ – at the kitchen table. There are a few days where she doesn’t leave the piano bench, just playing around with the keys and the sounds she can wring from them. And, as usual, there are lazy days spent touching slips of notebook paper and setting them aflame with her hands. But now she knows what’s going on, knows she’s not a freak.

            Zoralee Durmango is a very special little girl, destined for a very special school.

            She is surprised at how full the Hogwarts Express compartments are. Everyone seems to be friends with each other, with upwards of ten people piling into compartments made for six. Initially she’s a bit perturbed by this, but she’s very grateful for it when she finds that this leaves several empty compartments at the back of the train. She goes into one and, after the train starts moving, closes the door and locks it, claiming it as her own. She sits in the corner by the window and watches the scenery go by, gradually changing from the London cityscape to what could only be the Scottish countryside. Several people pass by her compartment, but they’re all laughing with their friends, so they pay her no mind.

            When she sees the castle she has the presence of mind to change into her school uniform and robes. Eventually the train comes to a stop and everyone piles out onto the platform. A boy in black and yellow robes spots her levitating her trunk down from its rack – _Whoa! You’re really good at wandless magic!_ he tells her – and informs her that all the luggage will be taken to the school for her, so she leaves it be and gets off the train.

            All the first years ride across the lake in little boats, Hagrid standing in Zoralee’s dinghy and leading the way. She dips her hands into the water and is surprised when a tentacle wraps loosely around her wrist. She doesn’t pull away when a large eye suddenly makes itself visible under the surface of the lake, only curiously strokes the tentacle in her hand.

            “It looks like th’ squid likes ye!” Hagrid says brightly, looking down at the girl.

            “I guess,” she says. “I like water animals. I used to want to be a marine biologist when I grow up.”

            “What’s a marine biolist?”

            “Biologist. It’s someone who studies the non-magical animals in the ocean. They’re usually concerned with conservation and how the animals evolved.”

            Hagrid asks a few questions about what evolution is and Zoralee answers as best she can – she _is_ only eleven, after all, and the only things she really knows about the theory she’s had to learn on her own – and he seems infinitely interested in it. Then they’re all at the base of the castle and clambering out of the boats, so she lets go of the squid’s tentacle and it disappears under the water.

            The Great Hall is huge, she soon learns. There are four long tables there, one for each of the houses – there’s Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin, she’s told – and the ceiling is enchanted to look like the night sky. Candles float over their heads as all the first years clump together in the center aisle, waiting to be sorted. By a magical talking hat that is, apparently, omniscient. Zoralee wonders if there might be a better way of sorting, but she doesn’t bring it up.

            The first person sorted is a girl named Mikasa Ackerman. She goes to Gryffindor. Armin Arlert is sorted into Ravenclaw before the hat can even touch his head. Others go up and leave – Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff – and then Professor McGonagall is calling “Zoralee Durmango” from her parchment scroll.

            Zoralee swallows and nods, steeling herself, drawing out the courage she’s read that Gryffindor so prides itself on. She climbs the steps and looks up at Professor McGonagall, who gently prompts her to sit on the stool. It’s a short stool but her feet still dangle because she’s so tiny, and a few people titter out laughs at her size. She pays them no mind as she feels the hat descend upon her head. She feels like she’s being sent to the electric chair.

            The hat says nothing for several long moments, then:

            “Hmmm. Tricky,” it intones, and Zoralee gets the distinct impression that she is the only one who can hear it. “The only one I can rule out right away is Hufflepuff. You don’t have the social skills for that.”

            _Thank God,_ she thinks.

            “That leaves Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Slytherin,” it continues. “You’ve certainly got the mind for Ravenclaw. Nearly unrivaled intelligence. A skipped year in school, you say? That’s impressive. Very impressive.”

            _The smart house_ , she thinks, remembering the brief description of Ravenclaw in the glossary of her _Hogwarts: A History_ book. _I can deal with that_.

            The hat falls silent for a solid four minutes and she’s about to ask what’s going on when she hears the word “hatstall” from the murmuring crowd. She remembers that word. That’s when the Sorting Hat takes more than five minutes to decide a student’s house. She supposes most would be fidgeting at this point, but she still feels like she’s in the electric chair, so she doesn’t think she could force herself to move if she wanted to.

            “No. Not Ravenclaw,” the hat finally says. “You have the mind and the will, but knowledge is not what drives you, what lights your fire. You’re driven by other things. I see bravery. There is much courage here, possibly even reckless, stupid courage. Your eyes have seen things and you have refused to stand by and let them happen. You’ve selflessly given yourself up to combat injustice, even when you knew you were going to get hurt. And there’s that iron will again. Gryffindor traits.”

            Zoralee looks over at the Gryffindor table and sees Mikasa Ackerman watching her intently. The hat quiets for a moment, and when it speaks again it is much more somber than it was before.

            “That will is strong. One of the strongest wills I’ve seen in over fifty years. But it’s strong in an almost twisted way. You want power and control, but you want that power and control for good, to help those you love. You’re willing to do almost anything to help people, but you’re smart enough to know when that means being selflessly brave and when that means lying and cheating your way to the top.”

            The hat takes a breath, almost as if it had lungs.

            “This is when you have a choice, little one,” it says. “You can go to either Gryffindor or Slytherin. Just know that Slytherin prides itself on its pure blood. A Muggle-born girl such as yourself won’t have an easy time there.”

            Zoralee thinks for a long while. Which should she choose? She nearly wants to tear the hat to pieces and yell at the school board for making _eleven-year-olds_ make this choice, this _permanent_ choice that will affect her for the rest of her school years and when she tries to find a career post-Hogwarts. She thinks back to what she’s read about the houses and where she might be happiest – brave house or cunning house? Reckless house or calculated house? Chivalrous house or ambitious house?

            Later on, when she’s trying to sleep in her new dormitory, she’ll think that her question was inevitable. After all, she’s happiest when she’s useful, when she’s needed, whether that be washing dishes for her mother or helping a younger student learn scales on the piano. So she closes her eyes and prays the Sorting Hat will hear her.

            _Which house needs me?_

            “That makes me think you’re more Gryffindor than most sorted Gryffindors,” the hat says. “But since you asked, it better be… SLYTHERIN!”

            The last word, the name of her new house, rings out in the air in such a way that she’s sure everyone can hear it. There is a collective intake of breath and then the Slytherin table erupts in thunderous applause. As Professor McGonagall plucks the Sorting Hat from her head, Zoralee faintly recognizes that she is the first one to get sorted into Slytherin tonight.

            “Six and a half minutes, Miss Durmango,” says Professor McGonagall with a twinkling in her eye. “I believe that’s a new record.”

            Zoralee smiles (even if it’s brief) for the first time that night as she descends the steps and goes to sit at the Slytherin table. She doesn’t hear the name of whoever is called up for sorting next because she’s looking for a seat. Eventually she finds a space at the back of the table that is relatively empty of people. The only ones there are a girl and two boys, obviously an established trio. The girl has greasy red hair and a bright smile, the first boy has a slender face, and the last boy has black hair styled into an undercut. The first two follow her with their eyes as she sits down at the very end of the table and tucks her hands into her lap.

            “Hey!” the girl chirps, sticking out her hand. “Isabel Magnolia!”

            Zoralee looks down at her hand and, swallowing, shakes it once before dropping it.

            “Zoralee Durmango,” she says in return. She surreptitiously wipes her hand off on her robes.

            “I’m Farlan Church,” says the first boy. He jerks a thumb in the other boy’s direction. “This is Levi Ackerman.”

            “Hi,” she says.

            Farlan points at her meaningfully. “We’ll talk more after the ceremony,” he promises, then turns to face the front of the Great Hall.

            Isabel shoots her a grin and then turns as well. Zoralee is just about to look up at the next one being sorted when the other boy – Levi, Farlan had said – flicks his eyes in her direction.

            His eyes are slender and piercingly silver, and Zoralee gets the distinct feeling that he knows exactly why she was a hatstall. The thought is ridiculous and unrealistic, but it’s there. She swallows but doesn’t look away, doesn’t back away from his challenge. She sends him a glare in return, and he smirks before looking back up to the front.

            “ _Gryffindor_ ,” he murmurs like he knows everything.

            Zoralee works very hard not to flinch.

            Farlan is true to his word and initiates a conversation with her after the ceremony is done. Zoralee steadies herself when the empty platters lining the table magically fill with food; she’s not so keen on letting everybody know her blood status just yet. Maybe she’ll tell them once she’s befriended a few of them who are willing to defend her. But as Farlan makes a derogatory joke about Muggle-borns she’s not so sure anyone in her newly-appointed house will even want to share their dormitory with her, much less serve as any kind of line of defense.

            She pushes those thoughts aside and decides to learn all she can about the students sitting across from her, but the only things they’ll talk about are the fact that they’re second years and that they all come from wealthy pureblood families. Eventually Isabel asks where she’s from – just outside of London is the answer. Isabel’s eyes narrow confusedly as she says she doesn’t know of any wizarding communities directly outside of London.

            “You’re not a mudblood, are you?” she asks accusingly.

            Zoralee is about to choke on her forkful of mashed potatoes when Levi speaks up.

            “Of course she’s not,” he says. “She got sorted into Slytherin, didn’t she?”

            Isabel shrugs and drops it, and Zoralee has never been more thankful for an arrogant, self-assured boy in her life.

~

            The year goes by relatively smoothly. Zoralee, for fear of being outed as Muggle-born (she refuses to call herself a mudblood no matter how many times she hears it in the Slytherin common room, no matter how many times she sees it scratched into school desks), keeps mostly to herself. She grinds her nose into the pages of her textbooks. She makes no friends other than Farlan and Isabel, but she keeps even them at a distance.

            Levi, she decides, is an enigma. On one hand he’s bored with life, jaded despite the fact that he’s only just turned thirteen over Christmas, and on the other hand he’s the most arrogant person she’s ever met. Levi stares out of windows and gets top marks and stares Zoralee down when she sits across from him at meals. It’s common knowledge throughout the house that Levi isn’t exactly falling all over himself for her (he doesn’t seem to care for her at all, really), and it’s not like she wants him to, but a little sympathy might be nice. A little semblance of a friendship. She thinks that, in some odd way, she might be more like Levi than either of them realize.

            When the time comes for everyone to get back on the Hogwarts Express for the summer holiday Zoralee finds a compartment at the back of the train. She doesn’t expect anyone to come in behind her. After all, Isabel and Farlan, the closest people to friends she has, are more involved with their trio with Levi than they are with her. So when she hears the door slide open and shut again, the lock clicking closed, she’s a bit surprised. Even more surprised when she turns to see Levi sitting across from her.

            “What are you doing here?” she asks, going back to shucking off her robe. “I’m kind of trying to change.”

            “Then I’ll make this quick,” he says. “I just want to ask you a question.”

            She drapes her robe over the seat beside her and then plops down across from Levi.

            “Shoot,” she says.

            “What happened when you were being sorted?”

            Of course. That’s the question all her project partners ask her, the question even Snape, her head of house, asked her upon her first entry into the Slytherin common room. Not that she ever answers. Why Levi – aloof, bored Levi – wants to know is beyond her, and she doesn’t really care to grace him with a response, but she does anyway.

            “Why do you want to know?” she asks.

            “Who wouldn’t want to know what happened with the longest hatstall in Hogwarts history?”

            “No. I mean, why do you want to know _now?_ You could have asked me at any time during the year.”

            “Would you have answered me if I’d asked you in front of a crowd? Or even just in front of Farlan and Isabel?”

            She shrugs. “I might have if you’d asked me.”

            Levi smirks and glances down at his feet, evidently thinking he looks very mature. When he looks back up his bangs partially obscure his eyes.

            “Will you tell me now?” he asks.

            What can she say? _The Sorting Hat let me choose?_ That would lead to “why did you choose Slytherin when it has such a bad reputation” and that would lead to the question she’d asked the hat and that would lead to the revelation that there is a possibility that she should be in Gryffindor, that the hat had made a mistake. Or not a _mistake_ , but an inaccuracy.

            “No,” she says instead. “I won’t. Why did you call me a Gryffindor at the welcoming feast?”

            His smirk grows wider.

            “I was just looking at you and you took it as a challenge,” he says. “Typical Gryffindor behavior. I’m interested in why the Sorting Hat would let such an obvious Gryffindor into Slytherin house.”

            “I’m not an obvious Gryffindor.”

            He makes an odd sound with his tongue between his teeth. “Whatever you say, brat.”

            He stands and makes his way out of the compartment, not sparing her a second glance. When she’s sure that no one is looking Zoralee waves her empty hand and the door slams shut.


	2. Second Year: Zoralee Durmango and the Chamber of Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren goes on to blabber about how Riddle needs to help them get Levi to the surface so he can be prosecuted, how there’s a Basilisk somewhere in the Chamber. Zoralee remains silent even though she desperately wants her companion to shut his mouth. She thinks. She thinks back to everything she’s read about modern healing and modern medicine, but something tells her that nothing can really help Levi at this point. Something is draining the life out of him and it’s only when she notices that Riddle looks significantly more alive than when he’d first appeared that she gets it.
> 
> “Eren,” she says, gripping her wand tightly. “Stand up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place throughout the entirety of their second year. Because Zoralee's more involved in the original plot, the chapter is a lot longer.

SECOND YEAR

            Zoralee receives no letters over the summer.

            It isn’t as if she’s been expecting any. After all, the Slytherin trio is still the Slytherin trio without her. They don’t need her. Sometimes she stays awake until the wee hours of the morning contemplating why the Sorting Hat had thought Slytherin needed her at all.

            When she goes to Diagon Alley this year she’s alone, no Hagrid to help her exchange her Muggle money at Gringotts and no Muggle parents to expose her blood status to any classmates she might run into. Once she’s finally gotten enough Galleons for her school things (the process involves a lot of nervous babbling on her part, but she makes it work) she heads first into Flourish and Blott’s to buy books. There are a lot of books by some guy named Gilderoy Lockhart, all of which seem to be little more than ridiculous adventure novels, but they’re on the required reading list, so she pays for them and stuffs them into one of the proffered shopping bags, a thing with an endless inside. She goes to Madam Malkin’s for new robes – _another Slytherin_ , Madam Malkin tuts when Zoralee goes inside to make her order – and then to Potage’s for a new cauldron because hers had sprung an irreparable leak at the end of the previous schoolyear. Just as she’s passing Magical Menagerie she physically bumps into someone.

            “S-Sorry,” she stammers, backing up a few steps.

            “No need to be,” a voice, familiar in its monotony, responds.

            When she looks up from her feet she finds Levi standing over her. He’s gotten a bit taller, though she doubts he’ll ever be as tall as he’d like, and his voice is a smidge deeper.

            “Fancy seeing you here,” Zoralee says before she can get her mouth to shut. _Stupid_. Of course he’d be here. He needs school supplies just like everyone else.

            He scoffs. “It’s not such a surprise. I need new robes like the rest of them.”

            _Yeah_ , she wants to say. _You don’t need a new hat, though. Your ass has taken that job_.

            “What have you gotten so far?” he asks her.

            “Everything. I might go into Wiseacre’s for a minute, but I’m pretty much done.”

            “Me too,” he says. “Do you want to go to Fortescue’s?”

            She almost jumps back. Why would Levi of all people want to get ice cream with her? He never eats the desserts in the Great Hall, so she has reason to believe he doesn’t even like sweets to begin with. He also _hates_ her.

            Well, maybe he doesn’t hate her. He did just ask her to get ice cream with him, after all.

            Despite her better judgement and her nearly empty pockets she nods. He turns abruptly and she has to take run to catch up with him, weaving through people who are a good foot and a half taller than her until she’s by his side.

            They walk together to Fortescue’s in silence, and when they arrive they find the place strangely empty; the only people there are the ice cream scoopers behind the counter. Levi confidently approaches the counter and orders a chocolate and raspberry concoction, telling the attendant to mix in some chopped nuts as well. He pays and takes his cone from the attendant, then turns to Zoralee.

            “Are you going to get anything?” he asks with an arched brow.

            She jumps. “Yeah. Just deciding what I want.”

            He nods and finds them a table away from the counter while Zoralee orders a single scoop of cherry ice cream. The attendant throws on a whole cherry on top free of charge and she thanks him for it as she hands over the appropriate number of Sickles and Knuts. She takes her cone and goes to sit across from Levi at their little wooden table.

            Levi is picking at the whole raspberries in his ice cream with a spoon when she finally plants herself in the seat across from him. She sets her shopping bag down on the floor beside her chair and takes a lick of her ice cream. It’s really good, she decides, but the ice cream at the shop in her neighborhood at home is a bit better.

            “Are you looking forward to the school term?” Levi asks suddenly.

            Zoralee almost chokes on nothing. “Since when do you make small talk?”

            “I can do what I want.”

            She thinks that is a particularly dangerous attitude but she doesn’t say anything. After all, she’s supposed to be a pureblood, too, and most pureblood witches and wizards have that notion ingrained in the backs of their minds.

            “I guess I’m looking forward to it,” she says. “Not as much as I was looking forward to last year.”

            “Why?”

            _Because I’m in the wrong house_ , she thinks.

            She just shrugs and takes another lick of her ice cream.

            “There’s a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year,” he says. “Gilderoy Lockhart. Let’s just hope Eren Jaeger won’t kill this one, too.”

            “I read one of his books last year,” Zoralee responds. “Something tells me you may want to rethink that statement.”

            “What? You don’t like world-famous adventurer Gilderoy Lockhart?”

            “I don’t know him personally so I can’t say whether I like him or not. All I know is that he’s a bit… condescending. That’s how his book read, at least.”

            Zoralee watches as something changes on Levi’s face. It’s subtle, but the corner of his mouth quirks up like he’s impressed. She’s a little ticked off that he’s impressed with her – is everything he does around her some kind of test?

            “I gather that you feel the same way,” she says.

            “What gives you that impression?”

            “Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll believe you.”

            There’s that impressed half-smile again, and she really wants to deck it off his pretty face. Put her summer taekwondo training to good use.

            He shrugs, possibly mimicking her, and digs into his ice cream with his spoon. After he’s finished with his bite he asks another question.

            “What is your favorite subject?” he asks.

            Of course her parents ask that in their letters, and sometimes her professors ask how she likes their classes, but she doesn’t expect that question to come out of _Levi’s_ mouth. Levi, who really couldn’t care less about her and what she thinks about things.

            “Probably Defense Against the Dark Arts,” she says. “I like combat spells.”

            “Of course you do, Reaper.”

            “Reaper?”

            “You’re wearing that black jumper and you’d look like the walking embodiment of death even without it. You look like the Grim Reaper.”

            “That doesn’t mean you can just give me a stupid nickname.”

            “I can do what I want.”

            _If he says that again, or anything like it, I’m going to get up and leave_ , she thinks.

            She shoots him a mild glare and takes a full on bite of her ice cream. Her front teeth scream in protest but she ignores it, focusing instead on the creamy texture and the fruity sweetness as it passes down her throat.

            “What’s _your_ favorite subject?” she asks.

            “Potions,” he says without hesitation.

            She quirks a brow. “Because Snape favors you?”

            “That’s part of it,” he smirks. “But I also genuinely like the subject. It’s interesting.”

            “I don’t think Snape likes me all that much.”

            “You’re a Slytherin, though.”

            “Wasn’t it you who kept calling me a Gryffindor last year?” she asks. “I think Snape thinks the same thing. That the hat made a mistake.”

            “As much as I tease you about it, the hat doesn’t make mistakes. You belong in Slytherin.”

            She supposes that should warm her, make her feel good about her place in Hogwarts, but it doesn’t.

            They finish their ice cream, conversing about current events. Zoralee doesn’t subscribe to the Daily Prophet because she finds its writing to be a little too sensational for her taste (Levi is appalled at her lack of a subscription), so she can’t really do much in the way of talking except to analyze what Levi tells her of wizarding goings-on. He enlightens her on why Professor Quirrell was killed the previous year – _He had You-Know-Who tucked under his turban the whole time?_ – and gives her a little more background on the infamous Eren Jaeger, the Boy Who Lived. He tells her more about Gilderoy Lockhart’s appointment to the Hogwarts faculty. She drinks it up, if a bit carefully.

            When their cones are empty and eaten, they leave. The sun is starting to go down and Zoralee needs to leave so her mother can pick her up outside of Diagon Alley. The only problem with that is finding a way to tell Levi, who seems able to stay out as late as he wants and perfectly content to do so. She can’t exactly tell him that her mother is coming in a _car_ to pick her up in the Muggle part of London without giving herself away entirely, so she tries to make something up about walking home.

            “I thought you lived outside of London,” he says.

            _Of course_ he would remember that, that one little tidbit of information she’d shared at the welcoming feast last year.

            “I guess _home_ isn’t the right word. We’re staying in a hotel for a night. I’m going to walk to the hotel,” she amends, heart pounding with her lie.

            “Which hotel?”

            “I can’t remember the name of it.”

            He gives her a skeptical look. “Most wizarding hotels can be accessed through Diagon Alley. You don’t need to go out into the dirty part of London.”

            “Dirty part?”

            “The Muggle part.”

            She supposes that shouldn’t send her reeling considering the fact that he comes from a wealthy pureblood family, but it does. She doesn’t expect him to harbor the same kind of prejudice his friends do because he seems so much more mature than them. Her disillusionment is swift and easy, but it hurts just as much as if he’d told her that Muggle-borns rot in hell for their existence.

            It’s with an almost masochistic thrill that she pushes him farther.

            “You think Muggles are dirty?”

            “Don’t you?”

            “No,” she says indignantly. “I don’t. I think they’re people just like you and me.”

            He scoffs. “They’re disgusting. They can’t even do magic. And don’t get me started on mudbloods, polluting the wizarding community like they pollute the ocean.”

            “How can you say that? Hating Muggles and Muggle-borns just because of their supposed blood status is just like hating black people because they’re black or women because they’re women.” He makes that odd sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I’m serious! It’s blatant prejudice that is completely unfounded.”

            “You do realize that Muggles kill each other for the sport of it, right?”

            “If you’re insinuating that that’s some kind of common Muggle practice then you are sincerely mistaken.”

            “How do you know?”

            _Oh_ , she’s messed up. She’s about a second away from spluttering out the truth when someone bumps into her, knocking her off balance. Levi catches her and sets her upright. The wizard who had run into her apologizes and sends her a smile before going on his way. Zoralee turns back to Levi to try to explain away her knowledge of Muggle culture, but he waves her off.

            “Forget it. It’s not worth it,” he says, then scoffs. “I was wrong. A blood traitor like you is no Slytherin.”

            She can think of a lot of other reasons why she’s no Slytherin, like the fact that she’s almost recklessly blown her cover for the sake of doing what’s right.

            “And a bigot like you is no friend of mine.”

            “Who said I wanted to be your friend?”

            She hisses through her teeth. She didn’t think that would sting like it does.

            “I don’t see how you could possibly believe what you do.”

            “I can do what I want.”

            There that phrase is again. And, just like she’d promised herself, Zoralee turns around and leaves him staring after her.

~

            The first half of the first semester is torturous.

            Levi must have told Isabel and Farlan about her views on Muggles and Muggle-borns, because neither of them will so much as look at her anymore. She sits by herself at meals, nose in a book. She tells herself that she’d rather be alone than surrounded by bigots, but as the semester wears on she’s not so sure.

            And then the bloody writing appears on the corridor wall and everything changes. _The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware._

            It’s like a switch is flipped. Whereas the prejudice before the writing showed up was palpable but not seen or heard, now it’s everywhere. Teachers hand out detentions left and right to try and combat it, but it doesn’t do much good. Zoralee hears the word “mudblood” over and over again. She hears Levi, who has been newly appointed to the position of Seeker on the Slytherin quidditch team, say the word to a Muggle-born’s face. Armin Arlert, Eren Jaeger’s Muggle-born Ravenclaw friend, is faced with so much hate that his eyes are perpetually red and puffy from crying. She knows she should do something but doesn’t know _what_. What can she do without blowing her cover? Should she throw caution to the wind and let everyone know exactly who and what she is? If she reveals herself she’s only going to get attacked, maybe even petrified like so many Muggle-borns are.

            Prejudice isn’t the only new thing at Hogwarts. Gilderoy Lockhart makes his presence known with every strutting step he takes, his ornate dress robes billowing behind him like a wedding dress, or an elaborate sari. He’s a fat idiot, Zoralee decides, but if she wants to pass his class she has to learn his ridiculous curriculum, which consists primarily of tales of adventures that she’s not so sure he actually went on. Despite all the divisive bigotry which has suddenly cropped up at the school he remains stubbornly (and a bit admirably, if she’s being completely honest) dedicated to school unity, so in every class he pairs students of opposite houses together. Because Gryffindor and Slytherin take DADA together, Zoralee is always paired up with a Gryffindor.

            Today’s partner is none other than Eren Jaeger, the Gryffindor golden boy himself. He’s not paying attention to Professor Lockhart as the man rattles on about himself and his autobiography. Zoralee is only half-listening herself. Instead, she watches as Eren tries to keep himself from falling asleep. He eventually fails to wake himself up so she elbows his gently in the side. He jerks up and looks at her, mouthing a _thank you_. She nods.

            After DADA is lunch, so Zoralee takes her time packing up her bags. Eren and his friend Mikasa are talking quietly in the corner, and, as a perpetually loud Lockhart finally exits the room, she can make out every word they’re saying.

            “How can I speak Parseltongue?” Eren asks. “I’ve never-“

            “I don’t know, Eren,” his friend interrupts him. “But it doesn’t matter why. What matters is figuring this out. Learning how they’re getting attacked.”

            _They’re trying to figure out how Muggle-borns_ _are being petrified_ , Zoralee realizes.

            Before she can stop herself she walks over to them. They both stop talking immediately, Eren’s eyes narrowing at her. She can’t really blame him for his anger. Jean, another Slytherin, hasn’t exactly been too kind to him, and Eren isn’t deaf. He hears how the other Slytherins talk about Armin.

            “There are only two known causes of magical petrification,” Zoralee says before they can turn her away.

            Eren’s jaw drops. “You’re helping us?”

            “If you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly like the other Slytherins. I’m not a fan of the garbage they spew,” she says. “I’m not aware of any spell that can petrify someone. If students are being petrified then it means that there’s either a Gorgon or a Basilisk loose in the castle.”

            “What are those?”

            “They’re both magical creatures. A Gorgon is humanoid, and anyone who looks at it is instantly turned to stone. A Basilisk is like a big snake. If you look directly into its eyes you’re dead, but if you see a _reflection_ of those eyes… you get the picture.”

            “There was water on the floor the night Filch’s cat was petrified,” Mikasa says. “She must have seen the reflection of the eyes and-“

            “We have to tell Professor Dumbledore,” Eren says suddenly.

            “The professors aren’t stupid, Jaeger,” Zoralee reminds him. “Well, Lockhart is. But that’s beside the point. The point is that if a second-year can figure this out then they certainly have.”

            “Is there any way to kill a Basilisk?”

            “I don’t know. I assume so, considering it’s alive just like any other magical creature. I’d say sticking something through its brain should do the trick. The problem is going to be avoiding the eyes. You’d probably have to claw them out, and there’s not much of a way to do that without looking into them.”

            Just then Professor Lockhart comes back into the room. He brightly tells them to go to lunch, that if they want his autograph to ask before class next time. The three of them struggle not to roll their eyes as they leave.

~

            She still sits alone for meals, but now all her spare time is spent thinking over the Basilisk dilemma with Eren, Mikasa, and Armin. They go over everything they know about Basilisks, researching more when they run out of things to say. They learn that you can create a Basilisk by hatching a chicken egg under a toad, that the practice has been outlawed for a very long time, that the creatures are so unpredictable and difficult to control that even the darkest of wizards usually don’t bother with them. As the year goes by Eren hears more and more Parseltongue in the walls, and Armin deduces that the Basilisk must be using the pipes to travel throughout the school. Thanks to a particularly annoying ghost, they find a diary belonging to someone named Tom Riddle in the abandoned girls’ bathroom, a diary which, according to Eren, writes back.

            They also research the Chamber of Secrets. There isn’t much information on it in the Hogwarts library proper, and Zoralee highly doubts that it would be deemed dangerous enough to be in the restricted section; the information simply doesn’t exist. She thinks that the search for the Chamber is something of a pseudoscience in the wizarding world, like searching for Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Another problem they run into is the heir of Slytherin. Who the hell is the heir of Slytherin? There are plenty of rumors that Eren himself is the heir, but he denies those rumors so vehemently and researches so much that Zoralee doesn’t pay them much mind. Her three companions come up with lists of possible heirs, but Zoralee shoots almost all of them down. Jean Kirstein is too much of a coward, Annie Leonhardt has better things to do with her time, Reiner Braun and Berthold Hoover are two of the few Slytherins who don’t spew bigotry from their mouths. One day they bring up Levi as a possibility, and her heart seizes up so violently that she has to lie down under a library table for several minutes to get her breathing back to normal.

            _It fits_ , she thinks as she tries to regulate her breaths. _He’s prejudiced beyond belief, he’s a pureblood, and his family has such a long history at Hogwarts that he might know where the Chamber is_.

            But, despite the fact that it all fits, Zoralee doesn’t feel like Levi is the heir. There’s something about his aloofness that doesn’t go with the drastic actions of the heir of Slytherin. Levi is all talk, she realizes. He wouldn’t actually harm anyone. Besides, if he were actually the heir then he’d look absolutely ecstatic all the time, not exhausted and terrified like he has all year.

            Her suspicion that Levi is not the heir is confirmed, in her mind, when he goes missing.

            _His skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever_.

            Zoralee thinks that this is the strangest thing to happen this year. _This_ doesn’t fit. Why would the heir of Slytherin take a pureblood with the same ideals down to the Chamber to die? Armin theorizes that this is merely a diversion, that Levi is actually the heir and he’s faking his own abduction in order to throw people off his scent. But that’s the difference between her and Armin – Armin relies only on his brain, and Zoralee listens to the visceral feeling that tells her he’s wrong.

~

            Hagrid and Dumbledore are removed from the school, and Armin gets petrified.

            Eren and Mikasa, without Armin there to tell them that it’s a stupid idea, corner Lockhart into helping them find Levi and take him down, because they still think that the Slytherin boy is responsible for the petrifications. Zoralee is interrogating Moaning Myrtle when the two of them burst into the abandoned bathroom, Lockhart in tow.

            “Guys!” she yells. “You’re morons! There’s no way this buffoon is going to be able to help us!”

            “He says he knows how to defeat Levi,” Mikasa explains.

            “So does everyone else! A good killing curse will take him out, no problem! He’s just saying things to make himself look good!”

            “I resent that!” Lockhart exclaims.

            Zoralee rests her forehead in her hands for a moment, then tells Eren and Mikasa to keep Lockhart in place while she continues to ask Moaning Myrtle questions.

            “You said that the last thing you ever saw was a pair of glowing yellow eyes,” she says. “Where did you see them?”

            Myrtle points to the pedestal sinks in the center of the room. “Over there.”

            Zoralee doesn’t exactly know what she’s expecting to find when she walks over to the sinks, but it’s certainly not an intricately carved metal snake curling around the cold water tap. Something clicks in her head and she calls Eren over.

            “Say something in Parseltongue,” she says.

            “What?”

            “Tell it to open.”

            “Tell what to open?”

            “I swear to God you are the dumbest person alive,” she groans before taking Eren’s shoulders in her hands, looking him straight in the eye. “I think the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is behind these sinks. Tell it to open.”

            A look of realization dawns on the boy’s face and he turns to face the sinks. His brows furrow in concentration and then, easier than breathing, a hissed word comes from his mouth.

            Almost instantly the sinks start to move, going in a circle before sinking into the ground. When all is said and done a giant round hole lies before them. No one speaks for a long moment, and then:

            “You’re going in first,” Zoralee tells Lockhart.

            “What!?” he squeaks in a particularly undignified manner.

            She no longer has any doubts about the authenticity of his books. They’re all fiction.

            “We can’t have you running straight to Dumbledore with this,” she says. “As much as you’re going to get in the way, I don’t trust you to stay here.”

            “I’m an adult and you are twelve years old. You should be following _my_ orders.”

            She immediately draws her wand and jams the tip into his throat. She feels it when he swallows.

            “I’m a Slytherin, remember?” she says. “You may be smart, but I’m cunning, and ambitious, and willing to do whatever it takes to make sure I get what I want. And what I want right now is for you to follow my lead. If you do not listen to me I’ll make sure you regret it.”

            She could go on to tell him how she’ll expose him as a fraud by pointing out the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in his books, how she’ll send an anonymous letter to the Daily Prophet telling the world what a regrettably huge ego and idiotic personality he has, but she decides against it when she sees she already has him under her control. Eren and Mikasa are looking at her in shock. Zoralee supposes that, until this moment, they always saw her as a Gryffindor with green robes. Now that the Slytherin is coming out they don’t exactly know how to react.

            Lockhart nods and she takes her wand away from his throat. She keeps the tip pointed at him as she prompts him to step up the hole in the ground.

            “Go on,” she says.

            He nods again and then, without another word, drops into the opening and disappears. Zoralee lowers her wand and slumps her shoulders in relief.

            “What was that?” Eren squeaks.

            “Easier than I anticipated,” she responds. “That’s what it was.”

            The three students drop one by one into the hole, Eren bringing up the rear. The hole, Zoralee soon discovers, isn’t just a hole. It’s the mouth of a series of long slides that tunnel under the school, slides which are just steep enough to make her stomach drop but not steep enough to let her vomit. When she finally reaches the bottom she crashes into the floor, which is covered in little bones. She can’t decide if the bones are human or not, but she decides not to think about it too hard.

            “Merlin!” Lockhart’s voice calls out.

            If it weren’t for the danger they’re certainly in Zoralee would roll her eyes, but, as it is, she has to race over to the professor to make sure he doesn’t scream and further give their presence away. She soon discovers why he was so loud – the longest, biggest snakeskin she’s ever seen in her life is stretched along the ground. It’s easily half as tall as Lockhart and longer than an Olympic sized swimming pool. Whatever left this could easily swallow a grown man whole.

            “It’s a snake!” Lockhart hisses.

            “No,” Mikasa says as she stands up and brushes herself off. “It’s a snakeskin.”

            Eren lands on his face as he finally gets through the tunnels. He pulls himself up to standing and jogs over to the other three, bones crunching under his feet. “Whoa.”

            Zoralee nods and goes to turn the corner into another room, but she hears a bit of a scuffle and then two sharp intakes of breath. She whirls around and sees Lockhart with Mikasa’s wand clenched in his hand, the tip aimed directly at Eren’s forehead. Zoralee’s hand tightens around her own wand but she doesn’t move to raise it.

            “What are you doing?” Eren asks, incredulous.

            “I’ve always been rather gifted with memory charms,” he says easily. “They’ve really gotten me far in life. I mean, being an adventurer would have been nice, but it’s _dangerous_. Who wouldn’t rather take credit for someone else’s work?”

            Eren doesn’t beg or cry, much to his credit. Lockhart flashes a winning smile.

            “They’ll hear the story of how you three rushed into danger despite my sage warnings. How I was _tragically_ too late to save the boy, how the three of you went insane at the sight of his mangled body.” Another smile, this one a bit more sinister. “So, kids. Say goodbye to your memories.”

            He’s just started to move his wand when Mikasa all but tackles him. Zoralee takes the opportunity to race over and aim her wand directly in between the professor’s eyes as Mikasa gets her wand back from him. Suddenly there are three wands turned on him, and Lockhart smiles in the face of defeat.

            “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?” he chuckles nervously, evidently hoping that his charm will get him out of this one.

            Zoralee cocks her head condescendingly, then says a clear _petrificus totalus_. Lockhart goes stiff as a soldier and topples over into the snakeskin. Eren takes a few steps until he’s standing over the professor.

            “You’re one of the most disgusting people I’ve ever come across, and I literally burned Voldemort’s face off last year.”

            Zoralee turns to Mikasa. “Good wrestling skills.”

            “Thank you.”

            “Would you mind staying here with Lockhart?” she asks. “We need someone to make sure he doesn’t try to interfere when the spell wears off.”

            Mikasa looks like she might protest, but Eren echoes Zoralee’s statement, and she’s never been known to refuse her friend anything. Baby him, perhaps, but never refuse him. She nods. Eren gives her a long hug for in case he doesn’t come back, and then he and Zoralee turn the corner into the next chamber.

            The place is huge, with gargantuan sculptures of snake heads lining the walls. The back wall is spanned by the biggest sculpture of all, a work depicting the head and wild hair of Salazar Slytherin himself. The floors are gleaming black tile and the walls are roughhewn stone that drips green and blue from the underground light.

            But the décor isn’t what Zoralee focuses on. No, the first thing she sees is the body lying in the middle of the floor.

            And in a burst of Gryffindor recklessness she’s off, surging forward until she’s kneeling before Levi’s form. She presses two fingers to his neck and finds a pulse, however weak, and lets out a relieved breath. Eren is suddenly beside her, though he looks a bit more wary. He sets his wand down beside Levi and then takes the diary (which he has taken to carrying with him at all times) from his robes pocket, setting it on the wet ground.

            “We’ve got to get him out of here,” Zoralee says.

            “Zoralee, it’s a trap-“

            “I know it is, but Levi’s not the one who’s set it up. He’s not the heir.”

            “How do you know?”

            She’s about to explain that she doesn’t know, but she _knows_ , when the sound of wet footsteps echoes throughout the room. Eren and Zoralee look up to see an unfamiliar teenage boy strolling towards them. The hairs on the back of Zoralee’s neck stand up.

            “Who are you?” asks Eren.

            “My name is Tom Riddle,” the boy responds. “And you are Eren Jaeger.”

            “I know my own name. Why are you here?”

            The boy, Tom Riddle, snickers and comes to kneel on the other side of Levi’s body. The unconscious boy’s skin is even paler than usual, his dark circles like bruises under his eyes.

            “He won’t wake, you know,” he says.

            Zoralee feels her courage either evaporating or multiplying, but she isn’t sure which it is.

            “He’s not-“ Eren begins.

            “He’s still alive,” Riddle says. “But only just.”

            There’s something not right about the way Riddle looks, the way he speaks, but she can’t put her finger on what. It’s right on the tip of her tongue. Eren, however, seems to be able to articulate what she cannot.

            “Are you a ghost?” he asks.

            “A memory. Preserved in a diary for fifty years.”

            Eren goes on to blabber about how Riddle needs to help them get Levi to the surface so he can be prosecuted, how there’s a Basilisk somewhere in the Chamber. Zoralee remains silent even though she desperately wants her companion to shut his mouth. She _thinks_. She thinks back to everything she’s read about modern healing and modern medicine, but something tells her that nothing can really help Levi at this point. Something is draining the life out of him and it’s only when she notices that Riddle looks significantly more alive than when he’d first appeared that she gets it.

            “Eren,” she says, gripping her wand tightly. “Stand up.”

            Both boys, real and memory, turn their heads to look at her. Riddle’s mouth turns up like he knows she knows.

            “What?” Eren asks.

            “Get your wand and stand up.”

            She follows her own advice, pushing up on her knees until she’s at her full height. Eren tries to grab his wand but Riddle is there first.

            “Tom, what-“

            “For the supposed chosen one, you really are an idiot,” Riddle says, standing up as well.

            Eren pops up indignantly.

            “I’m not an idiot!”

            “Eren, we need to get Levi and go. We’ve got to let professional Aurors handle this.” She doesn’t break eye contact with Riddle.

            “What’s going on?” Eren whines.

            “He’s the heir of Slytherin. He’s possessing Levi and draining him of all his life.”

            Riddle looks at her with a mischievous glimmer in his eye.

            “I’m glad to see that Slytherin house still contains some of the brightest witches and wizards of the age,” he says, eying the green in her robes. “But I’m also disappointed. To think that a member of my own house would care so much about mudbloods that she’d be willing to risk her life to stop the attacks.”

            “Did you ever think that maybe a member of your own house could _be_ Muggle-born?”

            The words leave her mouth before she can keep them in. Riddle’s eyebrows shoot up and Eren’s jaw drops.

            “Being a Slytherin isn’t about having pure blood, _Tom_ ,” she snaps. “It’s about what’s inside.”

            The shock drops off Riddle’s face and he scoffs.

            “If that isn’t the corniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

            She’s about to argue with him more when he makes an odd hissing noise. She looks at him confusedly, but Eren’s eyes go wide. It must be Parseltongue, she thinks. Just then the mouth of Salazar Slytherin’s head drops wide open.

            With a quick _expelliarmus_ she has Eren’s wand in her hand. She pushes the wand into his palm and is about to bend down to pick up Levi – she may be small, but she’s strong – when an odd caw echoes throughout the Chamber. Both Eren and Zoralee look up to see a bright red and orange bird swooping down from the ceiling. It drops something from its talons and then soars off to perch on the top of Salazar Slytherin’s head. The Slytherin girl looks down at what the bird has dropped and sees that it’s the Sorting Hat, but peeking out from its rim is what could only be the hilt of a sword.

            “Eren, get the sword!” she exclaims, aiming her wand directly at Salazar Slytherin’s gaping mouth. She hears slithering noises and a deep growling, so she slams her eyes closed. She has no desire to die tonight.

            “What sword?” Eren calls back.

            “In the Sorting Hat! And once you have it close your eyes!”

            She hears him race over to the hat, then the telltale metallic scrape of an unsheathing sword, and then the sound of something _big_ hitting the water in front of Salazar Slytherin’s head. _God_ , what is the gouging spell? It’s _defodio_ , she’s sure. But what’s the wand movement? And how is it pronounced, exactly? She’s only ever seen it in books. She’s about to give up thinking and just try it, aiming for where she presumes the beast’s eyes are, when the air is filled with the loudest screech she’s ever heard in her life. Her eyes snap instinctively open and she’s sure she’s dead because of it, but she finds the bird that had dropped the Sorting Hat flapping incessantly around the Basilisk’s face, its talons dug into the monster’s left eye. Instead of a right eye it now has an empty socket.

            Riddle screams at the bird but can’t do anything about it without a wand. The bird finishes its job and, to her surprise, comes to land on Zoralee’s shoulder. Eren has the sword in his grasp but he’s holding it wrong, and his eyes are still closed.

            “Eren!” Zoralee calls. “Open your eyes!”

            He does so without hesitation, but his grip on the sword is still horribly wrong; his wrist is bent at an angle under the rapier’s weight and two of his fingers are hooked over the hilt. Before she can shout at her comrade to fix his grip, Riddle speaks up, voice seething.

            “You may have blinded the Basilisk, but it can still hear you,” he says.

            _That’s right_ , she thinks. It can still hear them. She can’t yell directions at Eren without setting the Basilisk on herself. Eren himself is being stupid again, doing that thing where his eyes go wild and his will hardens to steel, and Zoralee realizes that he’s about two seconds from doing something incredibly dumb and getting them both killed. He’s going to stab the sword into the serpent’s side, and then the Basilisk is going to whip its head around and swallow him whole.

            She doesn’t really have much of a choice.

            She casts one last glance at Levi before sprinting into danger again, dragging Eren by the collar away from the Basilisk just as it bites down on the space where he’d been a mere second before. The bird flies off her shoulder and perches on top of another one of the head statues. She gets the sword from Eren’s hands (he gives it up fairly willingly because, she suspects, he’s better at taking orders than he is at coming up with his own plans) and tells him to stay put and be quiet while she takes care of this.

            The sword feels good in her hands, feels right. The blade is engraved with something but she doesn’t have time to look at it closely when there’s a very angry Basilisk on her heels. And it _is_ right on her heels, snapping its jaws at nearly every sprinting step she takes. She’s not too terribly sure where she’s going but she does know that she needs to give Eren the time and space to figure out what to do about Riddle, so she runs until she’s backed up against the sculpture of Salazar Slytherin’s head.

            The work’s hair is sculpted in just the right way for her to scale the wall by it. Wand in one hand and sword in the other, she pulls herself up lock by lock and dodges the Basilisk’s teeth every time they try to come down on her. Sometimes she shoots a _diffindo_ into its open mouth to lacerate the back of its throat, and that usually gives her a solid fifteen seconds to get higher, but eventually she runs out of statue to climb.

            Down on the floor Eren has tiptoed his way back to Levi, kneeling beside him and trying in vain to wake him up. His knee occasionally crushes the diary and Riddle winces.

            _The diary_.

            Just as she’s about to yell down at her companion – _tear up the diary!_ – the Basilisk comes down on her with an open mouth, and something about it makes her fleetingly think that no _diffindo_ is going to save her. So she does the only thing her overstrung brain can think to do and shoves the blade of the sword straight through the roof of the creature’s mouth.

            The Basilisk screams and she feels almost bad for doing this – it’s not doing anything but following its nature – but then there’s a searing pain shooting up her arm. Just as the sword impales the Basilisk’s head, one of the creature’s fangs skewers her bicep. She cries out with the pain, nearly collapses from it, but the adrenaline pumping through her system won’t allow her knees to buckle. So she stands and takes it until the beast weakens, falling away from the sword and dropping to the floor of the Chamber, dead.

            The fang is still stuck in her arm, so she pulls it out. She knows this is bad, knows this is _very_ bad because they’ve learned about various kinds of poisons and venoms from Professor Snape and Basilisk venom is counted among the most deadly agents known to man, but that’s not important right now. What matters now is getting the diary destroyed. What matters now is getting Eren and Mikasa and Professor Lockhart and Levi out of the Chamber in single pieces, preferably alive.

            With her good arm she hurls the Basilisk fang to the floor. It clatters against the tile beside Eren’s knee. The boy immediately picks it up and sends her a horrified glance. Evidently he’d paid attention in Potions class, as well. Zoralee tries to speak but no sound comes out.

            Riddle smirks up at her despite the fact that she’s singlehandedly destroyed his only weapon.

            “Amazing how fast Basilisk venom can penetrate the body,” he says, voice echoing in the empty chamber. “I’d say you’ve got less than three minutes to live now. Soon you’ll be in Hell with the rest of the filthy mudbloods who have come before you.”

            She collapses to her knees and braces herself with her good arm, damaged one hanging limply and painfully from her shoulder. Her vision is starting to blur so she closes her eyes to save herself a headache.

            “Don’t you _dare_ talk to her that way!” Eren yells, and in any other situation Zoralee might laugh. That’s Eren for you – upright and honest and kind to the point of unkindness. But it’s _not_ any other situation, and she’s dying and Levi is going to die too if she doesn’t tell Eren to stab the damn diary until he can’t tell what it is anymore.

            She opens her mouth to speak again, and this time words tear out of her throat like racehorses from their pens.

            “Destroy the diary!” she yells down. Her voice doesn’t sound normal anymore. Nothing does. It all echoes and swirls together like she’s underwater.

            She doesn’t think she’ll ever know if Eren listens to her, but she does. She knows exactly when he starts destroying the book because Tom Riddle lets out an unearthly scream from the center of his chest. There’s the soft thud of the blunt fang piercing the diary’s leather cover, and then another scream, and then another thud, and then another scream, and this repeats until the screams echo out and disappear entirely. She’s not sure if the lack of screaming is because Tom Riddle is gone or because the venom is in her ears.

            Either way, she doesn’t want to die up here. She opens her eyes and stands, albeit shakily, and finds a ramp that winds from the top of Salazar Slytherin’s head down to the Chamber floor. _That_ could have been helpful earlier. She stumbles down the ramp and across the floor until she collapses next to Eren, Levi, and the pierced book. Riddle is nowhere to be found.

            Levi is sitting up now, but that’s the only thing she can really tell as she rolls over onto her side and presses her cheek into the cool tile. She feels pleasantly heavy, like she’s about to fall asleep after a very long and tiring day. If this is dying then it’s really not so bad.

            “Why is a blood traitor here?” Levi spits. He’s just cheated death and he’s already throwing nasty names around. Typical.

            Eren doesn’t find it all that funny.

            “She just took down a Basilisk for you!” he screams, body wound taut like a bow string as he tries not to pounce on the third-year. Zoralee can hear the tears in his voice. _Don’t cry, Eren. It doesn’t hurt_. “She’s dying for you and the first thing you do is call her a blood traitor! I should have let you die, you fucking disgusting-“

            “ _Eren_ ,” she manages to croak. It’s getting harder to breathe, but that’s okay. Her lungs don’t burn. The boy in question turns to face her, and that’s the last image she sees before she closes her eyes. “ _Be quiet_.”

            A choked sob cuts through the air and might have made her cry too if she were more awake.

            “I’m so sorry, Zoralee,” Eren weeps. “I should’ve helped you. I should have done something to-“

            “ _You did everything you could. I don’t blame you_ ,” she murmurs, because that’s really all she can do now. “ _You did so well._ ”

            Another choked sob and then there’s a shaky hand in her hair, petting her soothingly. She pretends that it’s her mother’s hand. She used to do that when Zoralee was a baby, rubbing her head until she fell asleep.

            “ _Levi_ ,” she mumbles. “ _You better live a damn good life._ ”

            There is nothing but Levi’s stunned silence and Eren’s sobs and Zoralee’s slowing breaths. The sound of hair scratching against her scalp is loud in her ear as someone, most likely Eren, continues to pet her head.

            And then, faintly, she hears rushing air and skittering nails on the floor. Her curiosity gets the better of her and she pries her eyelids open to see that bird in front of her face.

            “Fawkes?” Levi asks.

            “What’s Fawkes?”

            “That’s the name of this phoenix. He’s Dumbledore’s pet.”

            _Phoenix_ , she thinks vaguely, brain foggy. So that’s what it’s called. He hops up on her damaged arm, careful to avoid the wound itself, which goes clean through her bicep. Then there’s the sensation of wetness dripping onto her skin. Almost instantly the pain is back and she can feel every single screaming muscle, every inch of torn skin and sinew. She hisses and Eren nearly bats the bird off to let her die in peace, but Levi stops him.

            “You moron. He’s saving her,” he says. “Phoenix tears are the only known antidote for Basilisk venom.”

            So _that’s_ why the pain is back. Because she’s no longer dying.

~

            She passes out and wakes up in the hospital wing, a very relieved Madam Pomfrey looming over her. She’s groggy and still pretty out of it, but she manages to comprehend that Eren and Levi are fine, that everyone who had been petrified is okay now, and that she needs to get plenty of rest while the residual venom works its way out of her system. She takes this advice to heart and is out like a light before she can even close her eyes.

            The next day, when she’s finally free to leave the hospital wing, she takes a very long shower and goes to the end of year feast. When she walks into the Great Hall nearly everyone turns to look at her, and then there are loud cheers from someone at the Gryffindor table. She really shouldn’t be surprised that it’s Eren. She laughs lightly as he races over to envelop her in a bone-crushing hug, the likes of which she hasn’t had since her mother saw her off at Kings Cross after Christmas. Mikasa and a very not petrified Armin join in the hug, and the newly-reinstated Hagrid comes up behind them and pats them all on the back. Zoralee hasn’t really seen much of Hagrid since he’d taken her shopping for school supplies before the beginning of her first year, but he beams proudly down at her as if she’s been coming to his afternoon teas with the rest of the gang the whole time. She decides that next year, definitely, she’ll make an effort to get to know him.

            When she goes to sit at the Slytherin table some people applaud her for saving Levi and others sneer at her for ending the attacks against Muggle-borns. The majority of the students at the Slytherin table simply ignore her, which is just fine by Zoralee. She takes her usual seat at the end of the table and starts spooning food onto her plate, but then she feels someone sit down on the bench beside her.

            Levi takes his own plate and starts spooning food onto it. There’s a fried chicken leg and some mashed potatoes and some green beans, and then he sets his plate down in front of him and takes a bite.

            “What are you doing?” Zoralee asks. People are staring. Pureblood Slytherin legend Levi Ackerman is voluntarily sitting next to the biggest loser in the house (well, maybe she’s not a _total_ loser anymore), a loser who happens to be a “blood traitor” and a full year below him.

            “Eating my dinner,” he says.

            “Why are you doing that _here?_ ”

            He takes another bite of mashed potatoes and swallows it, then turns his head to face her.

            He looks better than he has all year; he’s gotten a bit of color back in his cheeks, his hair shines in the torchlight, his eyes aren’t dull and glassy, and his ever-present dark circles no longer look like black eyes. Zoralee fleetingly thinks that she might find him handsome if she had any interest in boys yet.

            “I wanted to thank you,” he says.

            She feels an embarrassed flush pulse through her cheeks, so she looks down at her dinner and picks at it with her fork.

            “It’s not a big deal,” she says.

            “You almost died for me. It’s a big deal.”

            That flush heats up and spreads down the back of her neck.

            “It didn’t hurt. It was fine.”

            He groans and she feels him turn his whole body to face her.

            “Look,” he says. “You were willing to die for someone who insulted you to your face and used to think your entire existence was a disgrace to pureblood wizards everywhere. You’re a goddamn hero, kid. Accept it.”

            Her fork stutters against the plate.

            “’Used to think?’” she asks.

            He sighs. “Yeah. Used to.”

            She looks up from her plate and, for the first time, beams at him.

            “Don’t get cocky, Reaper. You aren’t the only reason I’ve changed my mind,” he scoffs. “I’ve done some reading and some… _soul searching_ , I guess you’d call it. And I still don’t like Muggles or mudbloods.”

            Well, you have to start somewhere.

~

            The morning before they’re scheduled to board the Hogwarts Express for home, Professor Dumbledore calls both Zoralee and Eren to his office.

            The office is interesting and rather aesthetically pleasing, Zoralee decides, even if it’s a bit disorganized. There are huge dusty tomes in a burgeoning bookshelf, a large desk, and a set of stairs leading up to what could only be the headmaster’s private sleeping quarters. It’s lived-in. It feels like a home.

            Dumbledore himself is standing before his desk, long beard and blue robes swaying in the breeze from a partially-open window.

            “I assume you both know why I’ve called you to my office,” he says.

            “Yes, sir,” the two students say simultaneously. They share an amused glance – _jinx_ – before they look back at the headmaster.

            “This is about the whole Chamber of Secrets thing, right?” Eren asks for clarification.

            “Yes,” Dumbledore says, eyes gleaming in mirth behind half-moon glasses. “The whole Chamber of Secrets thing.”

            Fawkes sits on his stand in the corner looking just as beautiful as he had in the Chamber. Zoralee sends another mental _thank you_ his way. From the way the bird nods his head, she thinks he might understand.

            “I’ll make this as brief as I can. I don’t believe in shielding youth from the truth. Dark times are coming. There is no doubt about that. It was no mistake that the apparition you encountered in the Chamber of Secrets was of Tom Riddle,” Dumbledore says. “Tom Riddle is the former name of the one you both know as Lord Voldemort.”

            Neither Eren nor Zoralee flinches upon hearing the name. Eren is probably just being stupidly brave again, but Zoralee doesn’t flinch because she feels she doesn’t deserve to. She hasn’t experienced the atrocities that man committed or lived with their results, not the way Eren has.

            “Dark times may be coming, but they’re not here yet,” the headmaster continues. “For that reason you both need to stay out of danger as much as you can. I have a feeling that both of you are going to be invaluable in the coming years. You need to stay alive long enough to be of use.” He shoots Zoralee a look. “That is not to say that what you have done is wrong in any way. I commend you for your bravery and selflessness. But, if something like this is to happen again, please do not hesitate to tell me beforehand. After seeing what you have accomplished over the past two years, the truths you have uncovered, I trust your judgement. I’ll make sure at least one Auror is there to investigate anything you say if you present good evidence.”

            Eren says “yes, sir” and Zoralee nods, unable to form words. Dumbledore turns his attention to Eren now.

            “Eren, you may go. I need to talk with Miss Durmango in private now,” he says.

            Eren obliges, showing himself out of the office after telling Zoralee that there will be an empty space in their compartment for her if she wants it. Once she and Dumbledore are alone the headmaster speaks again.

            “As I’m sure you’re aware, the sword which you wielded in the Chamber of Secrets is known as the Sword of Gryffindor,” he says.

            “Yes, sir,” she manages.

            “Only a true Gryffindor would have been able to pull it out of the Sorting Hat, Zoralee.”

            She fights to keep from rolling her eyes. She knows what he’s insinuating. “I didn’t pull it out of the hat. I saw the hilt and told Eren to pull it out.”

            “Ah, but the sword would not have even presented itself to anyone but a true Gryffindor. It would have been completely invisible inside the hat to a Slytherin.”

            _Oh_.

            “Why don’t you tell me why you think you were sorted into Slytherin house?”

            She splutters for a moment. “I don’t know, sir,” she finally says.

            “The hat took a very long time making its decision, and yet it chose to sort a Gryffindor into Slytherin. You have no idea why?”

            A deep breath. She remembers it like it was yesterday.

            “When it was sorting me, the hat was stuck between Gryffindor and Slytherin. It said that I was very selfless and very brave, with an iron will. But it also said that my will was a bit twisted and that I was willing to do whatever it took to get what I wanted, but what I wanted was light and goodness,” she says. “Then it let me choose.”

            Dumbledore’s bushy eyebrows rise to the top of his forehead.

            “The Sorting Hat offered you a choice?” he asks.

            Zoralee nods. “I didn’t know exactly what to do, so I asked which house needed me most.”

            “That question alone should have put you in Gryffindor,” he says. “But the answer to it was Slytherin.”

            “I don’t know why it was the answer. I’ve wracked my brain for answers almost every night, but I can’t figure it out.”

            “Have you considered that it might be because you are Muggle-born?”

            She furrows her brows.

            “What do you mean?” she asks.

            “Slytherin house is well-known for its fixation on blood purity,” he says. “Perhaps Slytherin needs you more than Gryffindor because you have the power to change people’s minds.”

            She thinks back to the previous night when Levi had sat down beside her at the Slytherin table, when he had told her that she was one reason why he no longer hated blood traitors. Dumbledore, seemingly omniscient, smiles at her.

            “Your effect on the young Mr. Ackerman seems to be a prime example of this power,” he says. “But, as I’m sure the hat told you, Slytherin is a very difficult place for Muggle-borns. There hasn’t been a Muggle-born student in Slytherin in many, many years, which brings me to my question: do you want to transfer?”

            “Transfer _schools_ or-“

            “Houses, Zoralee.”

            “You can do that?”

            “It’s very rare, but it has happened before. There was a boy a few years older than me who transferred from Hufflepuff to Ravenclaw in his fourth year, but I do not believe that a Slytherin has ever gone to Gryffindor.”

            She bites her lip. “When I was trying to stop Professor Lockhart from tattling on us, I threatened him,” she says. “I intimidated him. Manipulated him, and well, too. It was… shocking how easy it was. If I really wasn’t a Slytherin, would I have been able to do that?”

            Dumbledore is silent for a long moment, and when he does speak it’s unhelpful.

            “I don’t know,” he says, and, for the first time, Zoralee realizes that this seemingly omniscient headmaster is human just like her.

            She thinks. If she transfers she’ll be with Eren and Mikasa more often. She won’t have to sit alone at meals. She will be where she, arguably, belongs, surrounded by friendly, mostly unbiased people who will accept her, blood status and all.

            But if she stays in Slytherin she might be able to effect some sort of change.

            She doesn’t realize that she’s looking at the floor until she makes her decision. She looks up with steely eyes and sets her jaw.

            “I’ll stay in Slytherin,” she says. “If Slytherin needs me, I’ll stay.”

            Dumbledore smiles a kind smile at her. “As if I needed more proof of your selflessness.”

            She has half a mind to tell him that she’s not just doing this for the benefit of others – she’ll feel good if she can change minds, plus she’s just stubborn as hell – has half a mind to tell him of various Muggle schools of thought that say that humans are incapable of altruism because they ultimately get something out of every good deed, but before she can even open her mouth someone else walks, unannounced, into Dumbledore’s office. The man has a long angular face, a scraggly beard, longish dark hair, and a pristine set of wizard robes that look _very_ expensive, and he strolls across the office floor like he owns the place. Dumbledore shows no sign of discomfort; though, because of her new revelation, Zoralee thinks the headmaster may just be an exceedingly good actor.

            “Ah, Kenny,” he says. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

            “So it’s true. They let you back in,” the man – Kenny – states distastefully.

            “When the governors learned that your nephew had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets, they saw fit to… summon me back.”

            _So this is Levi’s uncle_ , Zoralee thinks. Kenny looks like he wants to say something quite nasty but doesn’t know exactly what. He settles for a muttered “ _ridiculous_ ” that she thinks is rather pathetic.

            “Curiously, Kenny, the majority of those who signed the petition for my removal seemed to be under the impression that you would curse their families if they did not sign as you wanted them to.”

            “How dare you talk to me in such a way?” Kenny snaps. “My primary concern has always been and will always be the welfare of this school and the well-being of its students.”

            The man stares Dumbledore down for several moments and Zoralee has never felt so protective over another person in her life, not even when she was defending Eren and Levi from the Basilisk in the Chamber. She feels embers spark in the pit of her stomach and has to tamp down the flames that threaten to spring to life at her fingertips.

            After a moment, Kenny takes a deep breath in through his nose.

            “I presume that the culprit has been identified and dealt with?” he says more than asks.

            “Oh yes,” Dumbledore replies.

            “And? Who was it?”

            The headmaster casts a glance over at Zoralee but looks away before Kenny can take it the wrong way.

            “Voldemort,” he says.

            Kenny scoffs.

            “I see,” he says.

            “It was a memory of him, concealed within the pages of a book for fifty years, Kenny. I’m sure you know nothing about this book,” Dumbledore says, and Zoralee honestly thinks about directing this Kenny guy to the hospital wing to take care of that burn. “He possessed your nephew and acted through him. Levi, of course, has been fully pardoned. He couldn’t have had much of any idea as to what he was doing at the time.”

            Now Kenny looks distinctly uncomfortable as he stands before Dumbledore’s desk. He’s not on his home field, Zoralee realizes.

            “I’m sure that no more remnants of Voldemort’s previous self will… find their way into innocent hands.”

            “I certainly hope not, sir,” Kenny says, biting out the last word like he’d rather have quills stuck into his eyes than address the man in front of him as his superior. Now he turns to Zoralee. “And who might this young woman be?”

            “This is Zoralee Durmango,” Dumbledore says. “She and a certain Mr. Jaeger are the reasons your nephew is still alive.”

            “My eternal gratitude, Miss Durmango,” he says. He doesn’t care to wait for her to respond. Instead, he bids Dumbledore a ground-out farewell and leaves in a whirl of black robes, his fancy cane ticking against the floor.

            When he’s gone Zoralee can feel like she can breathe again.

            “Would he have thanked me if he knew I was Muggle-born?” she asks.

            “He might have thanked you, but he would have been exceedingly uncomfortable,” Dumbledore says. He finally moves, shifting his weight onto a hip. “I believe it’s time for you to head out, Zoralee.”

            “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

            She sends one last look to Fawkes, who bows his head at her again, and leaves. Dumbledore wasn’t lying when he said it was time for her to go; she has a train to catch, and friends to ride it home with.


	3. Third Year: Zoralee Durmango and the Prisoner of Azkaban

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Where’s the dog?” Eren asks.
> 
> “He’s the dog!” Armin all but yells, shrill and terrified, as he points to the corner. “He’s an Animagus!”
> 
> Eren is the first to turn around, but not by much. Everyone is suddenly facing the corner, where a ragged, haggard-looking man with long greasy hair stands. He wears a half-malicious smile and an Azkaban prisoner uniform, and he looks exactly the way he had on the front page of the Daily Prophet that Mikasa read in the library two months earlier.
> 
> “Sirius Black,” murmurs Zoralee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really have nothing to say but the other chapters have notes at the beginning and I'm all about formatting consistency.

THIRD YEAR

            She thought things might be less tense at home than at school, but she was wrong.

            Her paternal grandmother dies in early June, and her father loses his shit shortly thereafter. He starts drinking again, a habit he’d left behind years before Zoralee was born. He’s a horrible drunk, and Zoralee realizes this when he hurls a beer bottle at her head for the third time. But beer bottles to the face are nothing compared to what her mother has to endure. Already exhausted from her job as a nurse, she’s run into the ground by loud fights and louder comfort sex that Zoralee can only begin to try to ignore by covering her head with her pillow. Home has never been this bad, and the only things that can give her any relief from the tension are sleep, her taekwondo classes, and the electric keyboard she keeps in her room. There are days where she doesn’t even eat because she’s too busy playing the piano to block out the sounds of her parents fighting or fucking.

            Eren sends her frequent letters over the summer. She wonders if he only sends them because his aunt and uncle don’t let him do anything else, but the tone of the letters is easy and light, so she tries to push her anxiety to the back of her mind. She gets a letter from Mikasa once, and a few quick half-page notes from Armin, and she responds to every single owl she gets the moment she gets it, petting the owls and giving them apple slices that they won’t eat as she pens her letters. The owls often spook from an unexpected fight downstairs, flying around the room and screeching and running into the ceiling.

            When she boards the Hogwarts Express it’s with a long, internal sigh. She’s looking forward to deadlines and sleepless nights and everything else good and painful that comes with being at Hogwarts. She wants everything as long as she doesn’t have to be home. She finds Eren, Armin, and Mikasa in a compartment near the back of the train. There is an unfamiliar person in the corner (Professor R. J. Lupin, according to the suitcase tucked between his shins), but he appears to be asleep, so they all ignore him as Zoralee climbs over legs to sit down.

            They talk quietly for a good hour, recounting stories from the summer. Armin went to Paris for a week with his grandfather. Mikasa took a ballet class. Eren accidentally inflated his Aunt Rose and ran away from home. Zoralee laughs at the good parts and offers her condolences at the bad parts, but offers no tales of her own. She doesn’t think they’d care to hear the story of her depressing summer, the story of how her palms bled from picking up broken glass.

            The Scottish Highlands, normally so bright and happy, are dreary today, lightning forking across the clouds in great tongues and rain crashing down to the earth from a grey sky. They initially think nothing of this – the UK is prone to rain – but when Armin’s hand nearly freezes to the window and lines of unnatural frost cross the glass, they start to think that something might be wrong.

            And when the lights go out and the train stops completely, they’re sure.

            A cold, skeletal hand surrounded by ethereal strips of dark fabric pulls the compartment door open, and Eren nearly flips his shit. The creature immediately goes in for the kill, bending over and nearly pressing its open face to Eren’s mouth; none of the wandless fireballs Zoralee send its way seem to have any effect on it. A woman’s piercing scream fills the cabin and Zoralee is sure that Eren’s dead, they’re all dead as a bright white light explodes inside the train car. When everything comes back into focus the lights are back on and the creature is nowhere to be found. R. J. Lupin stands in the middle of the compartment with his wand out. Eren is down for the count, drool dripping down the side of his cheek.

            After Eren wakes up several moments later, Lupin explains it all. The creature that was in the train car is called a dementor, and they usually guard the wizarding prison, Azkaban; there’s an escaped murderer by the name of Sirius Black on the loose and the dementors were looking for him on the Hogwarts Express; the spell he used to repel the dementor is called the Patronus charm; the dementor targeted Eren because he is a well of bad memories. He goes on to give Eren a small piece of chocolate from what is, evidently, a personal stash.

            Eren asks who screamed. Armin and Mikasa seem confused, and they tell him that no one screamed. Zoralee insists that _yes_ someone screamed and Eren agrees, and Lupin looks curiously between the two but says nothing. The new professor stands up and tells the students that he’s going to go tell the train conductor to get the train started again, then leaves.

            The rest of the train ride is tense but uneventful. They change into their robes and get to the Great Hall, where yet another group of first-years is sorted. Levi sits silently beside Zoralee at the end of the table while Dumbledore introduces Remus Lupin as the newest Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Each house gets a few new members, and then the food appears.

            “How was your summer?” Levi asks her. “I never got a letter from you.”

            “I never got a letter from you, either,” she says, spooning a heaping helping of lamb stew onto her mashed potatoes.

            He hums. “Touché.”

            Levi has gotten taller yet again, and his voice is even deeper now. His face is sharper and Zoralee gets the impression that he’s going to use his good looks to his advantage.

            “My summer was… alright,” she says. “I worked out a lot.” She means her taekwondo classes, but she doesn’t want to have to lie about why she took lessons in a primarily Muggle discipline.

            “You? Working out?”

            “You never know when I’ll need to kill another Basilisk.”

            Levi chuckles, and it’s the first time she’s ever heard him laugh. She decides she likes the sound of it.

~

            She doesn’t think she’s going to like Care of Magical Creatures, but she does. A lot, actually. Magical creatures love her, she soon discovers. Bowtruckles climb all over her, blast-ended skrewts nearly purr when she comes near, and hinkypunks’ smoky bodies vibrate happily in her presence; Eren, on the other hand, becomes the only student in recorded Hogwarts history to be attacked by a flobberworm.

            The day Hagrid introduces the Gryffindor and Slytherin third-years to Buckbeak the hippogriff is the day that Zoralee truly understands that she is something of a genius when it comes to handling magical creatures, and that everyone in her class recognizes it. They all back up when Hagrid asks who wants to pet Buckbeak, leaving Zoralee to stand in front by herself. Hagrid, who doesn’t see the collective step back, takes this to mean that she volunteers, so he instructs her on how to approach a hippogriff – bow low and be respectful. Hippogriffs are very prideful creatures. She bows deeply and Buckbeak doesn’t even hesitate before dipping his head in return. She manages to scratch the creature behind where she supposes his ears would be and the class erupts in light applause, and then large hands are lifting her onto the hippogriff’s back. Zoralee protests vehemently but Hagrid won’t take no for an answer, slapping Buckbeak on the behind and sending him soaring into the sky with Zoralee in tow.

            When they come back down after an aerial tour of the Hogwarts grounds Zoralee feels like she might vomit; she’s never really cared for heights all that much. Hagrid helps her dismount and tells her she’s done brilliantly. She nods vaguely, but her attention is suddenly grabbed by the sounds of someone approaching Buckbeak.

            “You’re not so scary, you great brute,” Jean Kirstein says, strutting up to the hippogriff.

            Buckbeak, apparently, takes offense to this, because he rears and clocks Jean right in the arm. The fracture is audible, as are Jean’s undignified screaming and crying. Hagrid rolls his eyes and tells Zoralee to calm Buckbeak down while he takes Jean to the hospital wing.

            The other class she enjoys above all others is Defense Against the Dark Arts. She’d taken a liking to it in years past, but now that Lupin teaches the subject it’s difficult for _anyone_ (aside from Jean and a couple of his friends, all of whom make fun of the professor’s rather shabby appearance) to hate it. He’s kind and personable but knows how to command a classroom at the same time, something which impresses Zoralee to no end. One day he brings out a huge wardrobe and informs them that they will be combatting a boggart in class. He explains that boggarts take the form of whatever the viewer fears most, and that the repulsion charm _ridikulus_ turns them into something humorous; both these things are demonstrated when Mikasa turns her boggart from a huge cobra to a jack-in-the-box, when Jean turns his from a spider to a dog in roller skates.

            When it’s Zoralee’s turn she concentrates on heights. That’s what she’s most afraid of. She imagines that her boggart might wrap itself around her eyes and show her the top of a building, or spread itself thin around the room and project the view from a tall tree, but when she steps up to the front of the line and readies her wand, the boggart (still looking like that dog in roller skates) eyes her carefully and then transforms in a whirl. And then standing before her is nothing else but the spitting image of her own father, a beer bottle in his hand.

            She reels back for a moment, but before the boggart in her father’s skin can start yelling at her she says a firm _ridikulus_ and it’s gone, a dancing marionette in its place.

            Lupin eyes her curiously and maybe a little sadly, but waves the line along. Eren is next, and his boggart takes the form of a dementor. Lupin immediately jumps in front of the boy to stop the dementor from having any effect on him. The boggart instantly changes to the image of a full moon. When the professor murmurs a shaky _ridikulus_ it turns into a deflating balloon and races around the room. He guides it back into the wardrobe and locks it up, telling everyone that class is dismissed for the day but eying Eren all the while.

            Zoralee and Mikasa wait for Eren to come out after class. When he emerges he looks ecstatic. He tells them that Lupin wants to give him private lessons on combatting dementors, given that they’re guarding the school this year and have taken a particular liking to feasting off his memories. The professor in question comes out of the classroom as the three students are talking. He smiles gently, fatherly at Eren and Mikasa, but when his eyes roam over to Zoralee the smile falters. She gets the impression that he knows exactly who her boggart is.

~

            Eren’s aunt and uncle, being generally horrible people (from what Zoralee can tell), refused to sign his permission form over the summer, so he can’t go on any Hogsmeade outings. Zoralee offers to stay in the castle with him – after all, Eren is the one to whom she feels closest – but he tells her to go out and have fun. She knows he’ll never shut up about it if she stays, so she bundles up in her coat and scarf and goes to Hogsmeade. Armin and Mikasa are already there, so she fully intends to walk to the village by herself, but halfway down the hill to Hogsmeade someone falls into step beside her.

            “Hey,” Levi says.

            “Hey,” she responds.

            “Are you meeting your friends somewhere?”

            She shrugs. “It’s not in the plans, but if I see them I’ll hang out with them.”

            “What, so you were going to just mope around in Hogsmeade all by yourself?”

            “I wouldn’t _mope around_ ,” she says. “I was planning on getting a few quills from Scrivenshaft’s. Maybe some chocolate from Honeydukes.”

            He hums and sticks his gloved hands in his pockets.

            “I take it that you’re tagging along.”

            “Farlan and Izzy started dating each other and I really don’t want to pretend I don’t notice when they sneak kisses,” he says.

            “Don’t you have some girlfriend to hang out with?”

            “Is that a jab at my reputation or are you just trying to see if I’m single?”

            She flushes all the way to the tips of her ears.

            “A jab at your reputation!” she exclaims. “I’m not interested in you.”

            “Who are you interested in, then? Every Slytherin with a pulse wants me.”

            “It may not have occurred to you, but not everyone is going to bow down at your feet and worship you as some kind of sex god. _I_ certainly won’t.”

            “You didn’t answer my question. I bet you’re after Jaeger’s ass. I see you with him all the time.”

            “I’m not after Eren. I’m not after anyone. I don’t think about people in that way.”

            After a moment of silent walking Levi speaks again.

            “So you’re ace,” he says.

            “I’m what?”

            “Ace. Asexual. It means you don’t experience sexual attraction.”

            _That could fit_ , she thinks. But, then again, she’s a bit too young to know if she’s gay or straight or ace or anything.

            “ _Or_ I’m thirteen and romance and sex don’t appeal to me yet,” she says. “Just because you couldn’t keep your hand out of your pants at age thirteen doesn’t mean I’m incapable of it.”

            He chokes on the air and then chuckles an impressed little chuckle.

            When they reach Hogsmeade they go first into Scrivenshaft’s. True to her word, Zoralee buys several new quills and a couple more rolls of parchment. Levi looks on in boredom as she deliberates between a quill made from an eagle feather and one made from a pheasant feather. When they leave Scrivenshaft’s they go into Honeydukes, which is crowded with overexcited third-years hyped up on sugar. Levi grimaces but perseveres long enough for her to buy two small boxes of chocolate (one she intends to give to Lupin as a Christmas present). Once Zoralee’s errands are done Levi drags her into the Three Broomsticks, a popular little pub near the entrance to the village

            The two Slytherins find a small table in the back corner and hang their coats on the backs of their chairs before sitting down. The owner of the pub, an older woman by the name of Rosmerta, comes to their table and Levi orders them both butterbeers. Zoralee thinks about asking what a butterbeer is but decides against it when she realizes that most pureblood wizards would already know.

            She and Levi make idle chitchat while Levi traces the grain of the table with a fingertip. Madam Rosmerta comes back with their foaming tankards of butterbeer, sets one before each student, and leaves again. Levi immediately takes a sip of his drink and wipes the foam from his top lip. Zoralee follows suit. It’s _good_. She looks down into her steaming mug and inhales the sweet scent. It smells like butterscotch and sugar and other things that can rot teeth, but there’s also something sharp that she knows too well.

            “There’s alcohol in this, isn’t there?” she asks.

            Levi swallows another sip and sets his tankard down. “Trace amounts, yes. But you’d have to drink at least three mugs to even feel it.”

            She’s home again, with her father taking violent swigs of his sixth beer and throwing the empty bottle at her head when he’s done. The bottom drops out of her stomach. The sweet aroma of the butterbeer is suddenly _too_ sweet, and she pushes her tankard across the table. Levi looks at the mug.

            “You don’t like it?”

            “It’s got alcohol in it.”

            He rolls his eyes. “Lighten up, will you? It’s not going to kill you.”

            She feels like it just might.

            “I can’t drink it,” she says, stomach churning.

            “Merlin, Reaper. Drinking a little bit of alcohol isn’t going to fuck up your life,” he says “You’re such a child.”

            When she doesn’t say anything, Levi looks up. His expression changes when he sees her face.

            “Are you okay?” he asks.

            She wants to say that _no_ , she’s not okay, but she doesn’t think her pride would be able to take it. So she gets up, slaps two Sickles onto the tabletop, and shrugs on her coat.

            “If you’re just going to belittle me then I really have no interest in spending time in your company,” she says.

            “Reaper, come on. I didn’t even do anything.”

            She sends him a glare that puts him in his place, then grabs her shopping bags and leaves without looking back.

            Outside, Hogwarts students are still everywhere, laughing and smiling and joking with their friends. The clean, cold air makes Zoralee’s stomach stop churning so much. She adjusts her grip on her bags and weaves in between the students and permanent residents, deciding to just go back to the castle and spend the rest of the day with Eren, or by herself. She’s halfway to Hogwarts when she spots Armin and Mikasa looking out at the Shrieking Shack, which is visible from the hill on which they stand. She’s about to call out to them when someone beats her to it.

            “Looking for a new home?” Jean Kirstein mocks. He’s flanked by Slytherins Thomas Wagner and Annie Leonhardt. “I suppose you’ll be married soon, raising a litter of disgusting half-breeds.”

            Armin and Mikasa turn to face the trio and Mikasa looks like she could kill a man.

            “Sod off, Kirstein,” Armin says.

            Jean and Thomas “ooh” sarcastically at his words.

            “I think it’s high time we teach this _mudblood_ how to respect his superiors,” Jean says.

            Zoralee starts running up the hill, but the five other students seem to be oblivious to the sounds of her boots in the snow.

            “We can’t have these bits of pond scum thinking they can talk to purebloods like that, now can we?” Thomas coos.

            “I agree wholeheartedly, Wagner,” says Jean with a wicked smirk.

            “What should we do first? Should we-“

            Zoralee pulls her wand from her coat pocket and, within moments, has it jammed against Jean’s throat as she stands between Armin and the trio. Jean swallows hard, then masks his fear with a smirk.

            “Oh look. The Slytherin blood traitor has come to the rescue.”

            “You have five seconds to leave them alone,” she growls.

            “What are _you_ going to do?” he laughs. “You’re half a foot shorter than me.”

            “Ever heard of magic, dumbass? My size doesn’t matter when I have a wand pointed at your throat.”

            Thomas and Jean share a conspiratorial glance and, before she can do anything about it, Thomas has his own want pointed at Zoralee’s temple.

            “It appears that we’re at an impasse,” Jean says.

            She’s about to say something in return, but, suddenly, a snowball collides with the side of Jean’s head. Everyone turns to see where it came from, but there is no one in the surrounding forest. Jean’s eyes are wide in fear, the coward, and he calls out a loud “who’s there” into the trees. Nothing happens for a long moment, and then an entire barrage of snowballs rains down upon the Slytherin trio. Thomas’s pants are on the ground and he trips when they tangle around his ankles, an invisible force whirls Annie around by her scarf though she tries admirably to _diffindo_ the ever-living hell out of her attacker, and Jean is yanked to the ground and dragged towards the Shrieking Shack by the ankles. By the time they manage to escape, Mikasa and Armin are laughing uncontrollably, and Zoralee’s mouth is quirked up into a smile.

            “Eren!” Armin laughs.

            The world ripples beside him and then Eren is there, a silvery cloak draped over his arm. He laughs along with his friends and gives Armin a hug that lasts a bit too long.

            “You have an invisibility cloak?” Zoralee asks.

            “Yeah!” Eren says brightly. “Someone gave it to me my first Christmas at Hogwarts. The note said it was my dad’s.”

            “How did you get past Filch?” Mikasa asks. “He has to know that some students have invisibility cloaks.”

            “I used a secret passage that I found,” Eren begins, yanking a folded piece of parchment from his pocket, “using this.”

            “What is it?”

            Eren taps the parchment with the tip of his wand.

            “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” he says, and the parchment erupts into splatters of red ink. Eren unfolds the parchment to reveal an undulating map of Hogwarts, a multitude tiny red footsteps labeled with names traversing the drawn halls. “Reiner and Berthold gave it to me this morning. They said they nicked it from Filch’s desk in their first year.”

            Eren goes on to tell them that it’s called the Marauder’s Map, that it was made by four people called Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, that it shows everyone in the castle at any given moment. While Eren and Mikasa go over the possibilities of how to use the map, maybe for finding and apprehending Sirius Black, Zoralee looks over at Armin and sees her own apprehension mirrored in his expression.

            If the Sorting Hat, one of the most powerful magical items in existence, can be wrong, who is to say that this map can’t be wrong as well?

~

            Eren discovers that not only is Black his godfather, but he was in Azkaban for selling out his parents, ultimately leading to their deaths, and for killing thirteen Muggles and his old friend Peter Pettigrew. Eren sits down on a rock outside of Hogsmeade and leans into Armin’s embrace and cries for a very long time, with Mikasa stroking his hair comfortingly. Zoralee stands off to the side and stares out at the Shrieking Shack, feeling utterly useless. There’s a reason she isn’t in Hufflepuff.

            Her relationship with Levi gets better. He never stops sitting with her at meals (much to Isabel and Farlan’s disappointment), but for the first few days after their ill-fated Hogsmeade outing the conversation is tense. Most of the tension between them dissipates after Sirius Black gets into the castle and prompts a lockdown; Levi’s sleeping bag is directly beside hers in the Great Hall and they wake up holding hands, though neither remembers initiating the contact. Both stay at Hogwarts for the Christmas holiday this year. They have the Slytherin common room mostly to themselves considering most Slytherins have large family estates to go home to, so they spend much of their time playing wizard’s chess or reading beside each other on one of the leather couches or talking. Zoralee discovers that Levi is a brilliant chess player when she gets her ass kicked at least four times in a row, that he likes historical novels set in the wizarding world, and that, despite his generally cool and detached demeanor, he likes to talk about himself. She once might have brushed that last one off as arrogance, but now that she’s paying attention to him, she notices that he never shares any stories from home; it’s all _Farlan, Izzy, and I did this at school_ , or he’s merely telling her about his interests. He’s hiding something from her and she wants to know what it is, but, then again, she’s hiding something from him, too. It wouldn’t be all that fair for her to know everything about him while he knows nothing about her, and she’s not about to tell him that her parents are Muggles.

            In the spring semester she starts to notice that Professor Lupin’s absences have a pattern – he’s gone around the same time every month. Usually Professor McGonagall or Professor Flitwick will substitute, but one day Professor Snape bursts dramatically into the room and tells them to open their books to page 394. The lycanthropy section. They haven’t started their lessons on werewolves and the like yet, and Eren tells him so. Snape only sends him a very nasty glare and repeats the page number. At the end of the class Snape assigns them an essay on werewolves and sends them on their way.

            There has to be a reason why Snape would curtail their lesson on Animagi and start teaching them about werewolves, and the only ways to figure out why (at least the only ways that Zoralee can think of) are to ask Snape himself – which, considering the fact that he still seems to hate her, is out of the question – and to dive headfirst into research. She chooses the latter and spends countless nights with her nose buried in a lycanthropy book until it clicks.

            The day Lupin returns from his absence – looking more haggard than she’s ever seen him – Zoralee works up the courage to knock on his office door, a small box of Honeydukes chocolates in her hands. He opens the door and she honestly thinks about just leaving because he looks like he needs to rest more than he needs to hear what she has to say, but he invites her into his office before she can back up and apologize.

            His office is relatively clean, with a few papers scattered on his desk and a whole hoard of books stuffed into his bookshelves being the only signs of disorder. Lupin closes the door and prompts her to take a seat while he goes to sit behind his desk.

            “So, Miss Durmango, what did you wish to discuss with me?” he asks, folding his hands on the desktop.

            “I’m sorry,” she blurts.

            He cocks an eyebrow. “For what?”

            “I… Snape. I’m sorry about Snape.”

            “Nothing has happened to Professor Snape.”

            “No. That’s not what I mean. I mean…” She really should have written this out and practiced it beforehand.

            “Yes?”

            “I’m sorry about what Snape is doing to you.” Lupin falls silent and looks at her. “I know… I don’t want to say I know _what_ you are because you’re still a person, but… I know that you have a certain affliction and I know that Snape wants to expose it.”

            “Did Professor Snape tell you?”

            “No. He assigned an essay about werewolves and I knew there had to be a reason why he’d skipped over so much, so I did a bit more research than was necessary.”

            A small, forlorn smile crosses his scarred face and he lets out a sigh. “What do you plan to do?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “You are fully within your rights to release this information if you feel unsafe.”

            “With all due respect, sir, what part of _I’m sorry about Snape_ don’t you understand?” His smile turns amused, so she assumes she’s not in too much trouble for snapping back at a teacher. “I’m not going to report you or expose you or anything. I think what Snape is doing is wrong. Why would I do exactly the same thing?”

            He glances down at his hands and then back up at her, relief in his eyes.

            “Are you sure you’re not a Gryffindor?” he jests. He means it good-naturedly, but it still sends a stone to the bottom of her stomach.

            “There has been… a bit of contention about my proper place in this school,” she says slowly. “A few incidents have brought my house into question.”

            “Like using the Sword of Gryffindor to defeat a Basilisk?”

            He’s grinning now, and he looks suddenly very young. The realization makes Zoralee somewhat uncomfortable.

            “Maybe,” she says. She remembers the little unwrapped box of chocolates in her lap and hurriedly places it on the table. “I remember you had a little stash on the Hogwarts Express. I forgot to give them to you at Christmas and didn’t exactly want to give them to you in front of other people in case they thought…”

            He holds up a hand and nods, understanding. He slides the box over to his side of the desk and takes the box’s top off, revealing six little truffles.

            “I haven’t had Honeydukes since I was a student here,” he says. “Thank you. You can have one if you’d like.”

            “You look like you could use them more than I could.”

            “That’s a fair observation.”

            They make small talk for a minute or two – _Am I doing a good job as a teacher? How are your other classes? Is Mr. Jaeger doing alright?_ – and then Zoralee leaves, feeling, for once, that she knew exactly what to do when it came to a social interaction.

~

            Buckbeak is scheduled to be executed.

            A certain Kenny Ackerman gets wind of what happened between the hippogriff and Jean Kirstein and starts a petition to get the creature killed. From what she witnessed of his interaction with Dumbledore the previous schoolyear, Zoralee decides that Kenny probably did a lot of threatening to get signatures. On the day of the execution, Sawney, Mikasa’s pet rat, goes missing and Mikasa blames Armin’s ugly cat Bean for his disappearance, so things are a little tense when the four of them go down to Hagrid’s hut to offer their condolences and to say goodbye to Buckbeak. They stay for tea and rock cakes (Zoralee slips the latter into her pocket when Hagrid isn’t looking so he’ll think she’s eaten them), have a bit of a close encounter with a flying snail shell that breaks through the window, and then sneak out the back door as Cornelius Fudge (the Minister of Magic) and company come in. The students hide behind a gigantic pile of gigantic pumpkins until they’re sure that no one but Hagrid can see out of the window, then make a break for it, running up the side of the hill. Before they make it halfway to the castle they hear the sound of a blade slicing something, and Zoralee is the only one that turns around to look. Buckbeak’s severed head lies before his limp body, and she acutely wishes that she had just kept facing forward.

             Suddenly something skitters across the grass. Looking down, they see that it’s Sawney. Armin races around trying to catch the rat until he finally tackles it near the Whomping Willow. He holds Sawney up triumphantly – _I told you that Bean wouldn’t kill him!_ – and then they all freeze because something big growls behind them. Zoralee whirls around to find a scruffy black dog that looks to be at least half her size. But something’s not right about the dog (other than the fact that it’s snarling menacingly at Armin); its eyes are too intelligent.

            The dog surges forward and sinks its teeth into Armin’s leg, prompting a loud cry from the boy. Eren, Mikasa, and Zoralee race after it as it pulls Armin across the ground. Zoralee sends several fireballs the dog’s way, but nothing seems to faze it; it just continues to drag their friend along until they both disappear into a hole at the base of the Whomping Willow.

            Eren impetuously rushes forward and is immediately smacked out of the way by a limb. He lands hard on his side but gets up, staggering over to Zoralee and Mikasa. They need a plan, Mikasa tells them. Zoralee agrees, but she’s so strung out by Buckbeak’s execution and Sawney’s reappearance and Armin’s attack that her brain isn’t working to its full capacity. They need Armin, but _he’s_ the one that they’re trying to save! As she’s wracking her brain for answers she notices a very large and out of place knot on the side of the Willow.

            _This is one of the worst thought-out things I’ve ever done_ , she thinks as she casts a _flipendo_ at the knot.

            But, lo and behold, the Willow stops thrashing its limbs about. The three share a half-amused-half-relieved glance and hurry to the base of the tree, slipping into the opening.

            A very long tunnel greets them. They race down it as quietly as they can, careful not to alert anyone to their presence. At the end of the tunnel stands a door, and Eren, Mikasa, and Zoralee share another glance before Eren pushes it open. The room they enter is so dusty that Eren sneezes, and everything is wooden. Wooden floors, wooden walls, wooden stairs that lead up to other levels, wooden dividers that section off the window. The window in question looks out upon the hill where Eren had attacked Jean in his invisibility cloak, and Zoralee suddenly realizes that they must be in the Shrieking Shack.

            A loud, pained moan sounds off from upstairs. The three students race up the stairs, not caring if they creak under their feet. When they reach the top of the flight they burst into what can only be a bedroom. Armin is sitting ramrod stiff on a bed, bloody leg propped up on the dusty sheets, staring at the corner of the room. When he hears them come in he tries to urge them away.

            “Please get out!” he begs. “It’s not safe in here!”

            “That’s why we’re here, genius,” Mikasa intones.

            “Where’s the dog?” Eren asks.

            “He’s the dog!” Armin all but yells, shrill and terrified, as he points to the corner. “He’s an Animagus!”

            Eren is the first to turn around, but not by much. Everyone is suddenly facing the corner, where a ragged, haggard-looking man with long greasy hair stands. He wears a half-malicious smile and an Azkaban prisoner uniform, and he looks exactly the way he had on the front page of the Daily Prophet that Mikasa read in the library two months earlier.

            “ _Sirius Black_ ,” murmurs Zoralee.

            Mikasa immediately jumps in front of Eren, forming a human shield around him.

            “If you want to kill Eren you’ll have to kill us, too,” she says darkly.

            Black laughs. “No. Only one will die tonight.”

            “Then it’ll be you!” Eren yells, launching himself at the man and grabbing him around the neck. They both topple to the ground (Black isn’t really putting up much of a fight) and Eren whips out his wand, pointing it directly between the felon’s eyes.

            Black just laughs again.

            “Are you really going to kill me, Eren?” he wheezes.

            Eren falters, and it’s just enough time for someone to burst into the room and cast a loud _expelliarmus_. When Eren’s wand is out of his hand everyone looks up to see Professor Lupin standing in the doorway, wand pointed at his student’s head. The professor cocks his head and Eren, for once, takes a hint, getting hurriedly to his feet and stumbling headfirst into Mikasa.

            Lupin lowers his wand so it points at Black’s prone body.

            “Looking rather ragged, aren’t we, Sirius?” Lupin asks rhetorically. “Finally the flesh reflects the madness within.”

            “You’d know all about the madness within, wouldn’t you, Remus?” Black returns. A smug smile pulls at his lips.

            The wand lowers completely and then Lupin is helping Black to his feet and pulling him in for a hug.

            Zoralee is sure that Eren is seeing red, because if all that _she_ can see is the blood she wants to spill then the boy with anger issues is _certainly_ seeing it. Her mind knows that there has to be a reason for this, that someone who has experienced as much prejudice as Lupin certainly has wouldn’t align himself with You-Know-Who or his accomplices without a good reason, but her heart is doing that stupid Gryffindor thing where it threatens to take over in a way that is very Jaeger-esque. She clenches her fist around nothing and waits for this mess to start making sense.

            Mikasa isn’t waiting. She rushes to stand in front of Eren again when Black says “kill.”

            “No!” she yells, then turns her attention fully to Lupin. “I trusted you! And all this time you’ve been his friend.”

            “He’s a werewolf,” adds Armin. “That’s why he’s been missing classes.”

            Given the fact that her favorite professor has just revealed himself to be in league with the man who betrayed Eren’s parents, Zoralee supposes that she should probably feel some kind of vindictive satisfaction when she sees how Lupin tries to hide his heartbreak, but she doesn’t. She still likes the man, almost to a fault, and seeing him in pain doesn’t make her feel good at all.

            Lupin pulls away from Black and takes a step towards the four students. Mikasa pushes Eren back, but Zoralee can’t find it in her to move.

            “How long have you been privy to that particular piece of information, Mr. Arlert?” Lupin asks.

            “Since I finished writing Professor Snape’s essay.”

            “Well, you really are the brightest wizard of your age.”

            Black makes an odd noise in the back of his throat. “Enough talk, Remus! Let’s kill him!”

            “Wait, Sirius.”

            “I did my waiting!” Black yells. “Twelve years of it! In Azkaban!”

            Lupin looks from Black to Eren several times, and then, sighing, hands his wand to the former. Zoralee’s stomach drops.

            “Very well,” he says. “Don’t wait one more minute, but Eren has the right to know why.”

            “I know why,” Eren says. His voice shakes with anger. “You sold out my parents. You’re the reason they’re dead.”

            “No, Eren. Someone did betray your parents, but it was someone who, until quite recently, I believed to be dead.”

            “Who was it, then?” Eren’s voice is indignant. He doesn’t believe a word his professor says.

            “Peter Pettigrew!” shouts Black. “And he’s in this room! Right now. Right there.”

            He points at Armin, who squeaks.

            “That’s Armin Arlert,” Mikasa says.

            “Not the _boy_!” Black yells. “The rat!”

            All eyes shoot to Sawney, who still rests in Armin’s hands, and Zoralee suddenly remembers every single thing she has ever learned about Animagi.

            Just then a low, nasally _expelliarmus_ comes from the entrance to the room and Lupin’s wand shoots straight out of Black’s hand. Everyone looks up to see Snape standing in the doorway with his wand out. He cocks his head to flick his greasy hair to the side.

            “Vengeance is sweet,” Snape says, centering his wand on Black’s forehead. “I _hoped_ I’d be the one to catch you-“

            “Severus,” Lupin interrupts, but he is, in turn, interrupted when Snape points his wand in his direction.

            “I told Dumbledore you were helping an old friend into the castle and, now, here’s the proof.”

            “Brilliant, Snape,” Black mocks. “Once again you’ve put your keen and penetrating mind to the task and, as usual, come to the wrong conclusion. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Remus and I have some unfinished business to attend to.” His voice chokes off when Snape jabs the tip of his wand into his throat.

            “Give me a reason. I _beg_ you,” says Snape, twisting his wand into the felon’s skin.

            “Severus, don’t be a fool,” Lupin says.

            “He can’t help it. It’s habit by now.”

            “Sirius, be quiet.”

            “Be quiet yourself, Remus!”

            “Look at you two, quarrelling like an old married couple,” Snape intones.

            “Why don’t you run along and play with your chemistry set!” snaps Black, and Zoralee thinks that he might be a bigger idiot than Lockhart.

            The tip of the wand digs in harder.

            “I could do it, you know,” Snape says lowly, backing Black up until the felon’s spine is flush against a dusty piano. “But why deny the dementors? They’re so longing to see you. Do I detect a flicker of fear? A Dementor’s Kiss. One can only imagine what that must be like to endure. It’s said to be nearly unbearable to witness, but I’ll do my best.”

            Zoralee feels her wand being removed from her pocket. Glancing to the side, she sees Eren with his hand stuck out behind her. His eyes are trained on Snape, but then he looks at her for silent advice. She nods surreptitiously and feels her wand slide completely out of her pocket.

            “After you,” Snape says, pointing his wand towards the open doorway. _There’s an opening there_ , Zoralee thinks. _Black could deck him and run right now and no one would be able to stop him from escaping._ Black either doesn’t see the opening or he chooses not to take it, but Eren sees an opening of a different kind.

            He thrusts his borrowed wand forward and yells _expelliarmus_ , sending a bolt of bright blue magic straight into Snape’s chest. The professor in question flies back into a four poster bed which promptly collapses on him. Now that Snape is down for the count, Eren aims his wand at Black.

            “Eren!” Mikasa yells “What did you just do?”

            “You just attacked a teacher!” Armin exclaims, shaking like a leaf. Eren pays them no mind.

            “Tell me about Pettigrew,” he demands.

            “He went to school with us. We thought he was our friend,” says Lupin.

            “No, Pettigrew’s dead,” Eren says.

            “I thought so, too, until I saw his name on the map I confiscated from you last month.”

            “The map was lying!”

            “The map never lies!” Black bellows. “We would know! We made it! Pettigrew’s alive, and he’s right there.”

            He points to Sawney, who squirms violently in Armin’s hands.

            “You’re mental!” Mikasa yells. “Sawney has been in my family for-“

            “Twelve years, right? Awfully long life for a common garden rat. He’s missing a toe, isn’t he?”

            “So what if he’s missing a toe?”

            “All they could find of Pettigrew was his finger,” Eren says, Caribbean eyes opening wide.

            “Exactly!” Black exclaims. “The coward betrayed your parents, killed thirteen Muggles, then cut off his own finger so everyone would think he was dead! And then he transformed into a rat!”

            “Show me.”

            Black struts across the room and plucks Sawney from Armin’s hands. He drops the rat onto the dusty piano and retrieves Eren’s wand from the ground while Lupin picks up his own. Sawney scampers down the piano keys and leaps onto the bench as the two men hurl spells at him. The rat eventually gets down to the floor and tries to scuttle away, but a spell lands just as he gets through a hole in the wall.

            A fully grown, if a bit dusty, man crashes into the wall, and Lupin and Black hurriedly grab him by the collar and drag him into the center of the room. The man – Pettigrew, Zoralee assumes – doesn’t seem to realize he’s human again for several moments, but when he recognizes the fact that he has opposable thumbs he looks up at the two men looking down at him.

            “Remus?” he asks. “Sirius? My old friends!”

            Then he makes a break for it, trying to race out the door. Lupin and Black hold him back and thrust him back into the center of the room. Pettigrew suddenly turns on Eren and tries to appeal to him – _I knew your parents, you know. You look so much like your mother, Carla_ – but Black screams at him to shut up. Lupin tells him that he has no right to talk about Carla in front of Eren, then accuses Pettigrew of selling the Jaegers out to You-Know-Who. Pettigrew is nearly crying when he admits it, but he tries to qualify it by saying that he didn’t mean to. He tries to run again and latches onto Eren, telling him that his father would have wanted him spared. Zoralee recognizes the desperation in his voice and knows that it doesn’t matter if the late Grisha Jaeger would have wanted him dead or not – Pettigrew is willing to say anything to stay alive. Lupin and Black point their wands at Pettigrew and begin counting down from three. On one, they say, they’ll kill him.

            “No!”

            The command is shouted by both Eren and Zoralee.

            Black looks at Eren and Lupin looks at Zoralee, but both men hold the same confusion and disappointment in their eyes.

            “Why should we spare him?” Black asks Eren.

            “My Dad wouldn’t have wanted him dead. I believe that.”

            It’s Lupin’s turn now, and he asks Zoralee the same question.

            She swallows. “You kill him and you become murderers. You become no better than him.”

            Lupin stares at her for a long time before nodding.

            “What do you propose we do with him, if not kill him?” Black asks.

            “Take him to the castle,” answers Eren.

            Zoralee finishes for him. “From there the dementors can have him.”

            Pettigrew, who looked like he was about to bow down and worship at Eren’s feet, now turns his terrified gaze to Zoralee, like he can’t believe a thirteen-year-old girl could be so ruthless.

~

            She gets her wand back from Eren and they all head into the tunnel together. Black and Eren support Armin so he can hobble along, Mikasa levitates an unconscious Snape, and Zoralee is designated as the Pettigrew wrangler, her job being to walk behind the man with her wand poised at his back. She gets the distinct impression that Pettigrew, while a coward at nature, is especially scared of her. Lupin walks behind everyone just in case Pettigrew decides to make another run for it.

            When they come out of the tunnel they find themselves by the Whomping Willow again. Mikasa deposits Snape on the grass and sits down beside him. Eren and Black, the latter of whom is now insisting that everyone call him Sirius because he feels strange when people call him by his last name, place Armin beside Mikasa. Zoralee keeps her wand pressed firmly against Pettigrew’s spine as she listens to Eren and Sirius talk. Despite their rocky introduction they seem to get along swimmingly. Sirius even offers to let the boy live with him – he is his godfather, after all – an offer to which Eren responds by asking when he can move in.

            Just when all seems calm, Armin yells “Eren!” Everyone whips around to see the boy pointing to a place in the night sky. Zoralee is about to ask what’s so bad about the moon when she hears garbled sounds of pain. Sirius races over to Lupin and supports him as the professor convulses.

            “Have you taken your potion tonight, Remus?” he begs. The only answers he gets are a slack mouth and more muscle spasms. “Remember who you are, Remus! Who you are lies in this heart! This heart, Remus!”

            Rustling comes from under the Whomping Willow and Zoralee sees Snape slowly rising to his feet, seemingly oblivious to Professor Lupin’s transformation. And it _is_ a transformation. His spine contorts grotesquely and grows until it splits the back of his suit coat. His feet splinter his shoes. His nails go sharp. Suddenly Professor Lupin is gone and, in his place, stands a terrifying monster.

            “Jaeger!” Snape yells. “You are in for it, you ungrateful little-“

            He never gets to finish his statement because Lupin throws Sirius off of him. Snape whirls around and, upon seeing Lupin, immediately places himself as a shield in front of the students. Sirius lands somewhere in the bushes and is nowhere to be seen.

            While Zoralee is distracted Pettigrew shrinks down into his rat form and scampers away. She nearly goes off after him, nearly yells _diffindo_ and cuts the damn Animagus in half, but then Lupin takes a step towards Snape and her friends, and before she can stop herself she’s running right into danger again.

            She’s not exactly sure what she was intending to do when she got there, but she finds herself in between Snape and Lupin. Snape makes to push her aside but freezes when Lupin does nothing but stare at her. Zoralee has never been happier to have an O in Care of Magical Creatures.

            Carefully, she steps towards Lupin. When he tenses and growls she stops in her tracks, but once he calms again she continues forward. This happens several times until she is only half a foot away from his face.

            “You are Professor Remus J. Lupin,” she says quietly. “The best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher that Hogwarts has had in at least three years, probably more. You are friend to Sirius Black and mentor to Eren Jaeger. You are a Gryffindor. You are a werewolf, but that doesn’t define you.”

            If she were stupid she might place her hand on Lupin’s head, but she knows that werewolves possess nearly human intelligence and that to pet one on the head like a cat would be condescending, so she keeps her fists at her side. All seems to be going well until Snape inhales sharply behind her. Lupin’s attention snaps to Snape, and then he throws his head back and howls.

            “Durmango, get back!” Snape commands. “Get behind me!”

            She’s about to comply when Lupin brings his huge paw down and throws her aside. She lands on her side with a rather undignified yelp. She vaguely hears something snap, and it takes her a minute to realize that it’s her left arm. The werewolf advances on Snape. He draws his paw back, ready to eviscerate everything and everyone in his path.

            Then the large black dog is at his throat, knocking him to the ground. Zoralee finds her wand and forces herself to stand despite how badly her broken arm aches. Lupin throws Sirius from himself once again, but Sirius’s Animagus form is much stronger than his human one; he bounces right back, clashing with the werewolf in a mess of sharp teeth and claws. He situates himself between the group made up of Snape and Zoralee’s friends and growls protectively, then runs off in another direction. Zoralee is about to vomit – _I’m going to watch my friends die_ , she thinks around the pounding in her ears – when Lupin suddenly follows Sirius out of sight.

            “Sirius!” Eren yells, breaking free of Snape’s grasp and racing after them.

            “Jaeger, get back here! You’re going to get yourself killed!” bellows Snape, and Zoralee can’t find it in her to disagree with him.

            But Eren is gone and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, so Snape abandons his place with Armin and Mikasa and strides over to Zoralee to examine her arm. He rips off her sleeve and she hisses at the sudden, jarring motion, but then he waves his wand and mutters _brackium emendo_. All the pain is gone and she can move her fingers again. She nearly collapses in relief, but the professor holds her at a distance.

            “ _You_ ,” he sneers, “are almost as reckless as Jaeger.”

            “You’re welcome,” she says before she can stop herself.

            Snape narrows his eyes at her and looks like he’s about to tell her off, but then an odd howl pierces through the night. It’s too high-pitched to belong to Lupin, but Lupin does let out a long howl of his own from somewhere beyond Zoralee’s line of sight. The sounds of fast, heavy footsteps, and then nothing. No one is stupid enough to go investigate.

~

            They find Eren and Sirius passed out on the shore of the Black Lake; Eren is taken into the hospital wing, and Sirius is taken into custody.

            Zoralee and Armin are taken to the hospital wing, as well. Armin, obviously, has the worse injury. Madam Pomfrey casts several spells on his leg before wrapping it in a plaster cast and propping it up on some pillows. The Mediwitch takes one look at Zoralee’s arm and says that Snape did a fine job, that she doesn’t need to do anything else with it. When Eren wakes up Madam Pomfrey takes her leave, going back into her office to, presumably, file incident reports of some kind.

            Armin and Mikasa fill Eren in on what happened while he was out – _Sirius is scheduled to receive a Dementor’s Kiss soon_ – and Eren, in turn, tells them what he saw by the Black Lake. A corporeal patronus in the form of a stag made of gleaming white light had saved his life, and he is convinced that it was his father’s doing. Armin tries to tell him that the dead can’t cast patronuses because they’re, well, _dead_ , but Eren won’t listen. Just as he and his best friend are starting to get into an argument about it, Dumbledore enters the hospital wing.

            Instantly, Mikasa and Eren stand and race over to him.

            “You’ve got to stop this, professor! They’ve got the wrong man!” Mikasa begs.

            “It’s true, sir,” Eren adds. “Sirius is innocent.”

            “It’s Sawney who did it,” Armin says from his hospital bed.

            Dumbledore looks at him like he’s grown a third arm. “Sawney?”

            “Mikasa’s rat, sir. Well, he’s not really a rat. I mean, he was a rat,” the blonde boy babbles. “Mikasa thought my cat had eaten him and-“

            “The point is that we know the truth,” Eren says, interrupting his friend. “Please, believe us.”

            “I’ve known of Sirius’s innocence for a long time. I do believe you. Let me assure you of that, Mr. Jaeger. But the word of three.” He catches sight of Zoralee, who has remained silent at the foot of Armin’s bed the whole time. “The word of four thirteen-year-old wizards will convince few others. The voice of a child, however honest and true, is useless against those who have forgotten that it is so.”

            Dumbledore stills as several low peals begin to echo from the bell tower. The sounds are murky through the walls, but they still seem to stir something in the headmaster that Zoralee can only label as inspiration.

            “A curious thing, time is. A powerful thing, but, when meddled with, dangerous,” he says, and Armin freezes on his bed. “Sirius Black is in the topmost cell of the dark tower. You know the rules, Mr. Arlert, and you will do well, I feel, to return before this last chime. If not, the consequences are too ghastly to discuss. If you succeed tonight, more than one innocent life may be spared. Three turns should do it.”

            He leaves Eren and Mikasa standing in the center of the hospital wing. As he closes the doors, he sticks his head in through the gap to say a few final words.

            “When in doubt, I find retracing my steps to be a wise place to begin,” he says. “Good luck.”

            And then the doors are closed and Eren is at Armin’s bedside

            “What was he talking about? Why did he address you?” he asks, more confused than accusatory.

            Armin reaches up and untucks a long necklace chain from his shirt. He pulls the chain over his head and hands it to Eren.

            “This is a Time Turner,” he explains. “I overbooked my schedule this year, so this is how I’ve been getting to all my classes.”

            Zoralee’s read about Time Turners. If the dial on the side is turned once the wearer goes back one hour in time. They’re only given out by the Ministry to highly trustworthy individuals, so Flitwick must have put in a _very_ good word for Armin if he was able to receive one.

            “What are we supposed to do with it?” Eren asks, and Armin looks at him like he’s the biggest idiot he’s ever met.

            “Go back in time and save Sirius,” Zoralee says. It’s the first phrase she’s spoken in over an hour, and her voice feels a little hoarse.

            “I can’t go,” Armin says. “I can’t walk. You guys are going to have to go for me. But not all of you can go because you’ll be seen too easily. Maybe only two of you.”

            They hurriedly decide that Eren is going, and Mikasa attempts to make a case for herself, but Armin cuts her off by telling her that Zoralee is probably the better choice. He uses his “commander” voice, so no one questions him. He quickly explains how to use the Turner and the rules of meddling with time, speaking primarily to Zoralee as he does so. Once he’s done he instructs Eren to loop the chain around his neck. Zoralee ducks into the necklace and holds up the pendant. Armin nods once, and then Zoralee turns the knob thrice.

~

            They take Dumbledore’s advice and start by retracing their steps. They were going to Hagrid’s at seven-thirty, so they surreptitiously rush down to the hut and hide behind the pumpkin pile. Eren, in a rare burst of intelligence, deduces that Dumbledore meant they could save Buckbeak when he said that more than one innocent life might be spared, so after he throws a snail shell through the window to alert their alter egos to Fudge’s presence, they manage to lead the hippogriff into the Forbidden Forest with the help of several dead ferrets.

            They stay in the forest for a good hour, waiting for their other selves to emerge from under the Whomping Willow. When they do, Zoralee watches with bated breath as Lupin throws her off himself and fights with Sirius. From their new vantage point, Eren and Zoralee can see everything that goes on, even the things which the latter hadn’t been able to witness when Eren went galloping after Sirius and Lupin. Zoralee is horrified to see Lupin nearly maul Eren when the boy throws a rock at his head, but before that can happen she lets out a loud howl. Lupin freezes and turns before racing towards them into the forest.

            Eren berates her for putting them in danger, but she doesn’t have time to defend herself. She pulls him deeper into the forest as Lupin enters, sniffing for them. They loop themselves around trees and even attempt to climb one, but the werewolf eventually finds them and swings his paw back to attack. The paw never makes it down because, suddenly, Buckbeak is there, rearing and striking at Lupin until the wounded werewolf flees. Zoralee bows to the hippogriff to show her appreciation, then Eren drags her down to the Black Lake to watch for his father to appear.

            All they see are dementors attacking both Eren and Sirius, swooping by to siphon more and more life from their bodies. Eren keeps muttering things about his father and Zoralee wishes that she knew the incantation for the Patronus charm so she could just do it herself. She knows that Grisha Jaeger won’t be making an appearance anytime soon, and, eventually, Eren seems to accept that fact as well. He races down to the water’s edge and yells _expecto patronum_ until a very solid-looking stag fires from the tip of his wand. The stag is accompanied by a huge wall of light that pushes the dementors back away from Sirius and the other Eren.

            Someone comes and takes Sirius away, so Eren and Zoralee hurriedly mount Buckbeak and take to the sky. Zoralee feels like vomiting – she hates heights, _hates_ them, and doesn’t see how Mikasa can possibly play quidditch – but when they arrive at the top of the dark tower she pushes her fear aside and hurls a strong _bombarda_ at the lock on Sirius’s cell door. They get the prisoner onto Buckbeak’s back and then take off again, this time with both Eren and Sirius cheering in glee.

            When they land in the entrance courtyard, the three of them dismount and Sirius pulls Eren aside to talk to him. Zoralee hears part of their conversation despite her preoccupation with saying goodbye to Buckbeak. Sirius tells the boy that one day he can come to live with him, but not until his life is still stable. He expresses his gratitude for what he’s done for him.

            “I expect you’re tired of hearing this, but you look so like your mother,” Sirius tells Eren, and Zoralee can almost hear the wistful smile that is surely splitting the boy’s face in half. “It’s cruel that I got to spend so much time with Grisha and Carla and you so little. But know this: the ones that love us never really leave us. We carry them with us always. In here.”

            Zoralee keeps her back to the pair to give them some semblance of privacy, but she does hear Sirius stand up and come to Buckbeak.

            “And who might you be, girl who can tame werewolves?” he asks. It’s only through a great deal of effort that she is able to tamp down an embarrassed flush.

            She looks up at him. “Zoralee Durmango, sir.”

            “Gryffindor? You’re reckless and brave enough. Not many others would have willingly thrown themselves in front of a snarling werewolf.”

            “Slytherin, sir.”

            Sirius’s eyebrows shoot to the top of his head, and then he smiles.

            “I’m sure you are going to do great things one day. You already have.”

            He clambers onto Buckbeak’s back, adjusts himself, bids Eren what he hopes to be a temporary farewell, and instructs the hippogriff to start flying. The creature obeys, mounting to the sky with a speed and steepness that might have made a weaker man hurl. Once they’re out of sight Zoralee reminds Eren that they need to be back in the hospital wing in less than five minutes, but they stay staring at the night sky for a second longer before rushing into the castle.

~

            The morning before she’s scheduled to depart on the Hogwarts Express, Zoralee finds her way to Lupin’s office door with a small box of Honeydukes chocolate hidden in her robes pocket. She’s about to knock when Eren emerges, eyes puffy and wet and hand clutching what can only be the Marauder’s Map. Her uncertainty about social interactions manifests itself as she awkwardly pats him on the shoulder in an effort to be of some comfort.  Eren tries to smile at her and walks away, rubbing at his eyes with one of his sleeves.

            “Miss Durmango,” Lupin’s voice says.

            Zoralee looks up to see that Eren hadn’t closed the door when he left. She can see straight into Lupin’s office. It looks quite different from the last time she was here, promising not to tell anyone about his condition; the books on his bookshelves are gone, and there are trunks everywhere. The office isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Lupin himself looks horrible – dark circles, dull hair, and sickly green skin all come together to make him look like a cancer patient in the beginning stages of chemo. He looks not unlike Levi did the previous year, with You-Know-Who possessing him. Lupin seems to notice that she notices, because the corner of his mouth turns up in a pained half-smile.

            “I’ve looked worse, believe me,” he says.

            “Is that supposed to make the situation better, sir?” asks Zoralee.

            Lupin’s smile turns amused. He flicks his wand at an open trunk and it slams closed, the latches clicking into place.

            “You’ve been sacked,” she says.

            “No,” Lupin corrects. “I resigned, actually.”

            “Why?”

            “It seems that somebody let slip the nature of my condition.” _Snape._ “This time tomorrow the owls will start arriving and parents will not want… well, somebody like me teaching their children.”

            He looks away when he explains this, and Zoralee gets the distinct impression that he’s not telling the whole truth. She knows that nothing she can say will make him stay; he’s already turned in his resignation, and he’s got Gryffindor stubbornness in him somewhere, she’s sure.

            “Don’t feel too bad, Miss Durmango. People like me are… Let’s just say I’m used to it by now.”

            “Don’t be used to it.”

            He looks up from his wand to stare at her.

            “Pardon?”

            “Don’t let yourself be used to it,” she says. “Let it make you angry. It’s not right.”

            “There’s no point in being angry over something I cannot change.”

            She wracks her brain for something to help her explain what she means, and she comes up with the perfect anecdote.

            “I asked the Sorting Hat which house needed me the most, and it told me Slytherin, so I went into Slytherin.” She takes a deep breath. “The thing is that I’m Muggle-born.”

            She doesn’t miss the way Lupin’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, doesn’t miss the way his eyes tell her to continue.

            “I tried for a very long time to figure out why Slytherin needed me, but then someone told me that it might be _because_ I’m Muggle-born. He said that I have the power to change people’s minds. I think you have that ability, too, but… you have to be willing to use it. Dumbledore said that-“

            She also doesn’t miss the way he tries not to flinch upon hearing Dumbledore’s name. But why would anyone dislike Dumbledore? Sure, _bigots_ like Kenny Ackerman and You-Know-Who probably don’t care for him, but Lupin has no apparent reason to dislike the headmaster, much less flinch at the mention of his name.

            _No_ apparent _reason_ , she reminds herself. _There’s always a reason, whether it’s apparent or not._

            She thinks over everything that Dumbledore has said to her, everything she can remember about him. She thinks back to her first face-to-face interaction with him at the end of the previous schoolyear. She thinks back to their conversation in the hospital wing, when he told them that he knew Sirius was innocent.

            _He knew Sirius was innocent_.

            And it all makes sense.

            “Dumbledore has done enough for me,” Lupin says gently.

            “If he’d done enough then Sirius would have been pardoned long ago,” Zoralee says, and the way Lupin looks at her lets her know that that’s _exactly_ why he’s leaving. “He knew he was innocent from the start, and yet he still let him rot in Azkaban for twelve years. He probably told you to let it go because he thought it was part of some bigger plan.”

            “Dumbledore is a very good man-“

            “I _know_ that. But he’s human, too, and humans are capable of both good and bad things. Dumbledore may have done more good than bad, but he still messed up and… and it’s okay to be mad about it.”

            Lupin contemplates her for several long moments, then flicks his wand at his last open trunk. The lid falls closed.

            “Sometimes I wonder about you, Miss Durmango,” he says, shaking his head as he grabs the stack of papers on his desk and drops them into his briefcase. “I wonder how you seem to know everything.”

            “I don’t know everything.”

            “I’m fully aware of that. You are only thirteen, after all.” He places a picture frame inside the briefcase and zips the zipper. “But you know much more than most other thirteen-year-olds. Much more than most people older than thirteen, as well.”

            She looks down at her feet and tamps down an embarrassed flush.

            “Thank you, sir.”

            “Thank you, as well. I probably needed to hear what you had to say,” he says. “Now, we both need to run along. The Hogwarts Express is leaving soon.”

            She nods and turns to leave, but then remembers the chocolate box in her pocket. She carefully takes it from her robes and turns back around. When she hands it to Lupin he chuckles.

            “Just a token of my appreciation,” Zoralee says as Lupin opens the box. Six truffles sit inside.

            “Do you want one?” he asks.

            “You look like you could use them more than I could.”

            “That’s a fair observation.”

            He takes a bite.


	4. Fourth Year: Zoralee Durmango and the Goblet of Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The week leading up to the third task is one of the most stressful weeks of Zoralee’s short life. Between attending her classes and doing her homework and prepping for exams she barely has time to bathe, much less help Eren with counter-curses and aqua eructo. And yet, somehow, she pulls it off. She barely sleeps, but she pulls it off. Five minutes before they both have to be back in their respective common rooms (that’s not going to happen given how long the walks are) Eren tells her that he feels ready for whatever might happen the next day, and she believes him.
> 
> But he’s not ready. No one is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the sexual content arrives!!! Listen I basically live for smut and this was the least morally dubious thing I could do this early on. If you really want to avoid the smut altogether, avoid the section that starts with "The first task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament is, to be entirely frank, a shit show." I'll have a summary of that section in the notes down below.
> 
> Also, the reason these four chapters were posted in such rapid succession is that I started writing it in December of 2016 or January of 2017, so I already had all four of these chapters written. That means that I have absolutely no idea when the next chapter is coming. I don't follow a schedule because I'm a busy film student on the autism spectrum, so school and anxiety take up a lot of my time.

FOURTH YEAR

            She’d forgotten how bad home is.

            It hasn’t gotten any better since she left for school; if anything, it’s gotten worse. Her mother goes through at least half a tube of concealer a week to cover bruises. Her father’s lost his job and now all three of them have to rely on her mother’s meager nursing salary. Her mother picks up extra shifts at the hospital to counteract the man’s growing thirst for whiskey, but Zoralee still has to give up her taekwondo lessons to save money. His bottle-throwing aim has gotten much more precise despite the fact that he’s drop-dead drunk most of the time, and this results in a fairly nasty slash across Zoralee’s jaw. And then there are the ever-present fights that she can barely escape, given that she can barely sleep anymore and she can only turn her keyboard up so loud before her father yells at her.

            Eren, Armin, and Mikasa go to the Quidditch World Cup with Mikasa’s family. They invite her to come with them, but she would have to buy her own ticket and she’s not exactly in the best economic place right now, not to mention the fact that when she brings it up to her parents her father starts screaming at her, calling her selfish and telling her that she’s the one destroying the family. It turns out to be for the best, however; the Quidditch World Cup is attacked by Death Eaters, the Dark Mark showing up in the night sky for the first time in thirteen years.

            A letter from Hogwarts comes for her via a tawny owl that likes when she scratches above its beak. The letter says the Tri-Wizard Tournament has been reinstated and that two other European wizarding schools – Beauxbatons and Durmstrang – will be present on the Hogwarts grounds this year. It goes on to explain the finer details of the tournament, such as that only those aged seventeen or older may enter their names into the Goblet of Fire, which chooses the champions. Zoralee reads the letter but doesn’t really think much of it; after all, neither she nor anyone she knows well will be competing.

            So she boards the Hogwarts Express with a new scar on her jaw and her wand in her pocket. She finds her friends in a very crowded compartment; apparently their presence in the Quidditch World Cup attack has made them very popular, and several Gryffindors are eagerly listening to Eren recount his experiences. Eren, Armin, and Mikasa catch sight of her as she pauses outside the door of the compartment. They tell her that they’ll make room (Armin eyes her scar with a worried expression), but she says it’s fine, that she can find somewhere else to sit. She walks off with a slightly heavy heart and looks for an empty compartment. The only compartment that is close to empty is in the very back, occupied only by a very familiar face.

            Zoralee knocks gently on the glass door. Levi looks up and, after recognizing her, waves her in. She complies and shuts the door behind her, going to sit in the corner closest to the window. He hasn’t gotten taller this year, but he does look much older, his face more angular and shoulders more masculine.

            “Just so you know, Izzy and Farlan are probably going to show up soon,” he warns.

            “Where are they now?”

            “Probably snogging in the girl’s bathroom.”

            She shrugs. “I’m okay with being in here with them if they’re okay with it.”

            Levi hums and changes the topic. “How was your summer?”

            She doesn’t exactly feel like telling him that she feels like dying and that she doesn’t even know her father anymore, so she says that it was fine and asks him about his. He shrugs and says the same thing, adding that his uncle had been thinking about sending him to Durmstrang this year but his mother had protested so vehemently that he’d dropped the subject.

            “I’m glad you’re staying here,” she says.

            Levi quirks a brow. “Why? We’re not the best of friends.”

            “You’re the closest thing I have to one in Slytherin.”

            “I’m flattered,” he says dryly. “Speaking of friends, why aren’t you with Jaeger and company?”

            “The compartment was too full.”

            He nods, understanding. Farlan and Isabel open the compartment door and slip inside. There’s a bruise on Isabel’s throat and Zoralee is about to feel sorry for her, but then she sees the way that Farlan eyes his girlfriend and realizes that it’s just a hickey. They take their seats across from Levi and, finally, take notice of Zoralee’s presence.

            Farlan sneers. “You let a blood traitor in here?”

            “Knock it off, Farlan,” says Levi. “She’s fine.”

            “You’re not denying that she’s a blood traitor.”

            “It doesn’t matter if she is or not. Get over it.”

            “You used to know your place,” Isabel scoffs. “What happened to that?”

            “Maybe he finally developed some semblance of a moral compass,” Zoralee says airily. The compartment is silent for a long moment, allowing the weight of what she’s said to press in on her, and then Levi snorts.

            “Maybe,” he says. “Not _your_ moral compass though. I still believe in blood purity, unlike some deluded people.”

            Farlan shifts in his seat, leaning back against the backrest. “I guess that’s the most important part,” he says, glaring at Zoralee from the corners of his eyes. The girl shrugs. No one asks her about the scar for the duration of the train ride.

~

            Reiner and Berthold, the idiots, try an aging potion to let them place their names in the Goblet of Fire. It doesn’t work and they have to go to the hospital wing to get the bushy white beards removed from their faces.

            On Halloween night the Goblet of Fire spits out slivers of paper with names written on them. From Beauxbatons there’s a girl named Fleur Delacour, who is so gorgeous that Zoralee begins to question her own underdeveloped sexuality. From Durmstrang comes Victor Krum, who also happens to be the Seeker for Bulgaria’s quidditch team despite being only seventeen. And from Hogwarts comes Erwin Smith, a tall blonde boy who would have been captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team this year had the sport not been suspended for the tournament. They all walk proudly up to the front of the Great Hall and Dumbledore congratulates them, but then the Goblet erupts in a tower of blue flames one more time and spews out a final slip of paper.

            Everyone is a mixture of shocked and confused – it’s the _Tri_ -Wizard Tournament, not the Quad-Wizard Tournament – as Dumbledore shakily plucks the paper from the air and reads out the name. And, of course, it says:

            “Eren Jaeger!”

            No one speaks until Dumbledore stiffly urges the boy to come to the front. Zoralee watches with her heart in her stomach as the boy who is, arguably, her very best friend leaves his seat at the Gryffindor table and walks jerkily to stand by Dumbledore.

            “Your… _four_ champions!” bellows Barty Crouch, Sr., the head of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic.

            The four champions are ushered into another room by Dumbledore, Crouch, and a few professors, leaving the rest of the school to sit in stunned silence.

~

            Armin stops speaking to Eren.

            It makes things very awkward for Zoralee (but, then again, when are things _not_ awkward for Zoralee?). She’s expected to pick a side – Armin, who thinks that Eren got someone to drop his name into the Goblet for the glory, or Eren, who isn’t doing a very good job of convincing anyone that he didn’t want to be a champion in the first place. Sure, he tells Zoralee with earnest eyes that he didn’t put his name in the Goblet, but he’s eating up the challenge like it was a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans. She secretly thinks that Eren isn’t the one at fault and that Armin is overreacting, but, because she needs a break from conflict, she decides not to take a side at all. Mikasa is always with Eren, who Zoralee can’t hang out with if she wants to remain neutral, and several third-year Ravenclaws are with Armin, who Zoralee _also_ can’t hang out with if she wants to remain neutral. She’s stuck, unable to be around any of her three best friends.

            She doesn’t exactly know when it happens, but she befriends Levi. Well, she guesses they were already friends, but now she _really_ befriends him. They spend more time together than is probably healthy, but, damn it, she’s lonely without her other friends and she needs the company. It’s kind of like the Christmas holiday the previous year, except this time they help each other with their homework more than they play wizard’s chess. Levi, she learns, is almost shockingly intelligent, and he’s a startlingly good teacher when he’s not tired. She thinks that he might make a good Potions professor if Snape ever croaks.

            On Sundays they usually have the common room to themselves, given that the other Slytherins prefer to mill about on the grounds or study in the library. They’ve usually finished all their homework by then, so they spend the day playing wizard’s chess – which Zoralee has gotten marginally better at – or reading beside each other or talking. Sometimes Levi will write a short story and make Zoralee critique it (he’s not a very good writer, and she doesn’t sugar-coat her criticism). This particular Sunday the two of them are engaged in an all-out war on the chessboard, each having lost both rooks, a knight, and four pawns. It’s one of the first times that Zoralee has managed to stay on his level, but she won’t let herself get excited yet; excitement leads to losing focus. Levi tells one of his white bishops to H6 and it takes out a black pawn, but Zoralee counters by letting her remaining knight crush the bishop to smithereens.

            “You’re getting better at this,” Levi comments.

            She shrugs. “I’ve had a good teacher. And a lot of time to practice.”

            Levi takes her knight with a pawn, a move Zoralee hadn’t anticipated. She tries to quickly recalibrate her strategy.

            “You haven’t spent nearly as much time with your other friends this year. Are you just blowing them off to practice playing wizard’s chess?”

            “No,” she says. “There’s just a lot of drama in the group right now and I don’t think I can handle any more drama.” She moves her king a space to the left to protect it behind a line of pawns.

            Levi hums. “I was under the impression that you were mad at Jaeger.”

            “Do you see me with one of Jean’s ‘Jaeger Stinks’ buttons? I’m not mad at Eren.”

            “Fair enough.” He makes his queen swoop across the board to put her king in check, and Zoralee quickly places a pawn directly beside the king. She’s losing fast.

            “I honestly think Armin is being a little cruel,” she says. “He won’t even talk to Eren now, when he needs him most.”

            Levi gives another hum and then looks down at the chessboard, obviously contemplating his next move. When he finally makes it – another pawn move – he glances back up at Zoralee. His eyes find the scar on her jaw and stay there.

            “How did you get that?” he asks.

            “Get what?” She’d rather play dumb than answer that question.

            “This.”

            He reaches across the coffee table and traces the scar with a fingertip, sending an odd shiver down Zoralee’s spine. She clenches her jaw to keep from making any stupid noises. When Levi finally notices that she’s uncomfortable he pulls back.

            “I tripped and fell on a piece of broken glass,” she lies.

            “And you couldn’t have gone to St. Mungo’s to get it healed properly?”

            She shrugs stiffly. “I don’t mind the scar. It doesn’t hurt.”

            With one final hum Levi takes the pawn that had been guarding her king.

            “Check,” he says.

            Zoralee instructs her king to take Levi’s queen. That leaves her own queen open to take his king. A bishop stands restlessly in place, ready to smash the king if it moves the necessary space to the left.

            “Check mate,” she says, and Levi looks as close to happy as she’s ever seen him.

~

            The first task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament is, to be entirely frank, a shit show. The task is to retrieve a golden egg from the middle of a clutch of dragon eggs; the catch is that a very angry mother dragon is guarding them. Delacour and Erwin barely get out alive with their eggs, Krum nearly kills the dragon (Hagrid almost has a seizure in the stands), and Eren demonstrates his subpar flying skills by shakily swooping down to grab the egg. Krum wins in the end, taking only about five minutes while Eren takes a whopping fifteen, but Eren wins something better than points and glory – after seeing how dangerous the tasks are and realizing that there’s no way Eren would have willingly put his name into the Goblet, Armin starts talking to him again. This means that Zoralee can _finally_ stop avoiding her friends and pretending to be neutral.

            As a result, she spends less time with Levi. She doesn’t think it will bother him all that much – she is a supposed blood traitor, after all, and despite his declaration of semi-tolerance she knows that it still makes him uncomfortable – but it seems like _something_ does; he snaps at people far more harshly while simultaneously becoming more distant. Zoralee doesn’t know whether she is the cause of his sudden change in behavior, but she does realize that Levi is a much different person around her, and she’s not sure whether that makes her heart soar or sink.

            Despite the excitement of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, class is still a thing that happens at Hogwarts. This year Zoralee’s plate is fairly full with Arithmancy – she’s never been the best with numbers – and Professor Moody’s DADA class, but Potions is what really kills her. Snape doesn’t seem to have forgotten how she kind of saved his life the previous year, but instead of being grateful, he’s angry. He’ll never take many points away from his own house because he’s an unfair bastard like that, but he does punish her in other ways, like with ruthless embarrassment.

            The worst instance of Snape’s cruelty comes shortly after the first task. Zoralee hears him quietly tell Jean that he’ll look the other way if he gets some ground ginseng root on her skin, and before she can ask what the hell is going on, a cool paste is smeared across the back of her hand.

            The effect is instant. A sharp flush blasts across her skin like a goddamn torpedo and she lets out an uncontrollably loud yelp. Everyone turns to look at her but her vision tunnels so acutely that she hardly notices. Her legs start shaking and her breathing is ragged and the only way she manages to keep her hands out of her skirt is by slamming them on the counter, gripping the edge hard enough to make her knuckles wash out white.

            Someone abandons their post and rushes over to her.

            “Zoralee, are you okay?” Eren’s voice asks. It sounds like it did in the Chamber of Secrets, when Basilisk venom pounded in her ears so hard that everything sounded like it was underwater. The boy places a hand on her shoulder and heat shoots across her skin. A choked whimper escapes her mouth.

            “What’s going on here?” Snape asks disinterestedly, strutting across the room until he stands directly in front of them. If Zoralee could form words right now she would call him out on his bullshit. He knows exactly what’s going on.

            “I think Zoralee got some ginseng on her,” Jean says.

            “Miss Durmango, I’m sure you’re aware that ginseng is a particularly powerful aphrodisiac, especially effective on pubescent bodies. You do know what an aphrodisiac is, don’t you?”

            She wants to punch him. Or kick him in the face. In any other situation she would be fully capable of doing so (even if it would garner her a swift expulsion), but now she can do little more than whimper and slam her eyes shut to try to block out as much sensory information as possible. Eren’s hand tightens instinctively on her shoulder and she cries out again. Everything feels bad and good and horrible and euphoric and she doesn’t know what to do.

            Snape lets out something akin to a scoff.

            “Or perhaps you’ve been a bit too busy going on little adventures to do your assigned reading. An aphrodisiac is a substance which stimulates sexual sensitivity.” A short-lived giggle comes out of someone’s throat when Snape says “sexual.” It’s not the prettiest word when said in his slimy voice. “Perhaps it was a bad decision on my part to allow a group of fourteen-year-olds access to such a potent substance, but I thought you were all responsible enough to handle it. I suppose I was… wrong. At least in your case.”

            Jean snickers and, suddenly, Snape isn’t the only one she wants to deck.

            “Leave her alone,” Eren growls. “She made a mistake!”

            “Mr. Jaeger, if you ever deign to speak to me that way again I will take a full thirty points from your house. As it is, ten points from Gryffindor.”

            “That’s not fair!”

            “Would you like me to take off another five?”

            Eren falls indignantly silent and Zoralee pries her eyelids open. Everyone is watching her, she realizes. Everyone is watching her practically soak her underwear with artificial arousal.

            “M-M-May I… leave?” she manages. “M-Madam Pomfrey-“

            Snape clucks his tongue.

            “Go,” he tells her. “Try not to assault anyone on your way to the hospital wing.”

            She doesn’t even bother gathering her things before stumbling out of the room. Eren tries to follow her to escort her to the hospital wing, but Snape snaps at him to stay in the classroom. Zoralee fleetingly thinks that Snape is purposefully setting her up for more embarrassment – who _wouldn’t_ be embarrassed to be caught attempting to masturbate in a school hallway? He has to have some kind of antidote in the potions cupboard, but she doubts he’d use it on her if she asked. The _bastard_.

            She quickly realizes that she isn’t going to make it to the hospital wing. She collapses on the stairs leading out of the dungeons, panting and so turned on she aches. She’s about to stick her hand down the front of her underwear when she vaguely processes the fact that she knows nothing about sex. Well, not _nothing_. She’s not completely ignorant. She knows how it works, with penises in vaginas and all that jazz, but she doesn’t know anything about how to masturbate or how to make this horrible ache between her thighs go away. Tears start to escape the corners of her eyes and she’s moments away from wailing out in agony – who would have thought that arousal could be so painful? – when she faintly registers footsteps coming around the corner, probably returning from the Slytherin dormitories.

            She doesn’t even have the capacity to be embarrassed anymore. Apparently the effects of ginseng intensify the longer it’s left on the skin, and she (understandably) hasn’t had the presence of mind to wipe the paste off on her robes. She slams her eyes shut again and prays to a god she no longer believes in that whoever is coming around the corner will be able to levitate her to the hospital wing.

            “Reaper?”

            _God, why?_

            She lets out a pained whine and Levi’s footsteps rush over to her collapsed body. She feels a cool hand on her overheated cheek and only stops herself from crying out by biting down on her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

            “What happened?” he asks.

            “G-G-Ginseng,” she stammers. A new wave of sexual torture sweeps over her and Levi has to cover her mouth to keep her from screaming.

            “It’s not supposed to do this,” Levi murmurs as he takes his hand away.

            “ _Help me_ ,” she begs, opening teary eyes.

            He nods and Zoralee is suddenly in his arms, her head tucked against his chest. It feels _fantastic_ but it _hurts_ and she vaguely thinks that the pain might be what makes it feel so good, thinks that this might be some kind of weird kink she has, but before she can fully explore the thought (not that she’d actually be able to, given how gone she is) she hears a door open and close.

            Her vision tunnels again and she can hardly see where she is. The walls are tan stone, but so is every other room in the whole damn castle, so she has no idea where she might be. She lets out another whimper and hears Levi swallow. She feels him set her down on her feet and she promptly collapses, unable to hold herself up. He kneels in front of her and places his hands on her cheeks to get her to look at him.

            “Ginseng isn’t supposed to do this,” he murmurs again, then actually addresses her. “You need to get yourself off and then I’ll get you to the hospital wing. I’ll be outside, so come out when you’re done.”

            “I-I don’t know _how_ ,” she whines.

            “I don’t know how it’s doing this, either-“

            “No, I don’t know how to-“ She _throbs_ and can’t stifle another whimper.

            Levi’s eyes widen in recognition, but he quickly schools his face back into its usual neutral expression.

            “Gently put your middle finger inside of yourself,” he tells her. His cheeks are dusted pink even though he has a well-known reputation for being quite the playboy. He’s probably never had to actually _instruct a fourteen-year-old girl on how to masturbate_. “Do you know what a clitoris is?”

            “I’m not-“

            “You’re not stupid. Okay. When you have your finger inside then press down on your clitoris with your thumb.”

            She knows she’ll hate herself for it later, but she doesn’t even wait for Levi to stand up before she has her hand down the front of her underwear. She hisses when she brushes over her clitoris but her opening is absolutely pulsing, so she quickly obeys Levi’s orders and eases her middle finger inside.

            She expects to feel some all-encompassing relief, but she doesn’t. Her vagina hardly even registers the sensation; it’s like when she puts in a tampon – completely ordinary. The only thing truly remarkable is how her finger feels because she’s never felt anything as hot and wet and tight and she feels like she’s dying because she can’t come, she can’t fucking _come_ -

            “I-I,” she stammers. “I _can’t_ -“

            Sometime during this whole masturbatory crisis Levi had stood up and backed against the door. He has his hand on the doorknob when she whimpers again.

            “It doesn’t feel good?” he asks.

            She shakes her head rapidly. She tries moving her finger, but it does nothing to quell the ache. Levi looks conflicted, like he might just run away and go fetch Madam Pomfrey, let Madam Pomfrey take care of this, but then his face is all stony resolve. He yanks his wand from his robes pocket and casts a couple of spells – _colloportus_ to lock the door, _muffliato_ to make sure no one hears what’s about to happen – and then strides back over to Zoralee and kneels before her.

            He grabs her wrist and pulls her hand away from herself. As unsatisfactory as her fingers felt she’s still sad to feel them leave, but then she can feel the heat from Levi’s palm. He doesn’t make contact with her flesh just yet, instead opting to pull her face back to face him again.

            “Can I use my fingers on you?” he asks lowly.

            She nods frantically, desperate for help.

            “Can I use my mouth?”

            “Where?” she asks.

            Levi half-groans, the sound too guttural to be irritated. Zoralee’s shin accidentally brushes up against his thigh and she can feel a resolute hardness pressing against the inseam of his tousers.

            “Down there,” he says.

            “N-No,” she answers him. “Not there.”

            “Neck?”

            “Yes.”

            “Lips?”

            “No.”

            “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

            And then a single finger is sinking into her and she feels like she might come apart from how unabashedly _good_ it feels. She lets out another whimper and her hand flies down to grab him by the wrist to keep him there. His head disappears to the side of her face, and she can’t keep her eyes open anymore.

            “ _There you go_ ,” he murmurs soothingly into her ear. His breath against her skin makes everything pulse, makes heat throb up her neck. “ _Does that feel better?_ ”

            “ _God, yes_ ,” she manages to respond in a choked voice.

            He doesn’t move for several moments, but when she starts to whine impatiently he starts to withdraw his finger, the pad of it dragging against her soft insides. She tips her head back as a moan, full and unexpected, wrenches itself from her throat. Levi takes the opportunity to stop talking and drag his parted lips down the side of her neck. He kisses his way to the juncture between her neck and shoulder, pulls the collar of her sweater aside, and bites down. She cries out again when he adds a second finger and pumps his hand.

            She makes a series of sounds that she hadn’t been aware she was capable of making, things like “ _yes_ ” and “ _nng_ ” and a breathless “ _hah_ ,” before she stammers out his name.

            “ _L-Levi_ ,” she whimpers, and it pulls a low moan out of Levi’s chest.

            The boy in question sucks hard on her neck, presses hot, open-mouthed kisses down the column of her throat, scissors his fingers inside of her, rubs her clitoris with the pad of his thumb until she can’t even scream because it feels _that_ good. He goes back to her ear and whispers filthy words, wonderful words, words that have her teetering on the edge of something incredible. She tries to tell him that something is happening, that everything is coming to a head, and he seems to get the idea.

            “ _Can you come for me, sweetheart?_ ” he asks. “ _Can you be good and come on my fingers?_ ”

            She can.

            She collapses forward against Levi’s chest and lets out a choked half-moan, her walls rippling around his two fingers as she gushes into his hand like a damn waterfall. She’s coming hard into his hand and there’s nothing she can do to stop it, nothing she _wants_ to do to stop it.

            When she comes down she finds herself panting into Levi’s neck. He’s taken his fingers out of her and now holds her flush against himself, clean hand running up and down her back soothingly until she can catch her breath. He murmurs things into the top of her head that, while unintelligible, are still comforting. When she manages to get her breathing under control she pulls away and runs her hands through her messy hair. She thinks it’s going to be awkward to look Levi in the eye, but it’s not.

            “Thank you,” she says slowly.

            He looks like he wants to say “any time” or “no problem, but instead of speaking, he just nods. After a long silence Zoralee glances down at his tousers. He’s still hard.

            “Do you need me to-“

            “No,” he says quickly. “If you just wait outside for like thirty seconds I’ll meet you out there.”

            Later, when she’s researching sex because she can’t get this encounter out of her mind, she’ll take that “thirty seconds” as a huge compliment.

            Now that she’s not in as much of a lusty haze – she still feels a bit weird, and will probably feel that way until she gets the antidote from Madam Pomfrey – Zoralee can see that they’re in a bathroom, probably the girls’ one in the entrance hall. She stands up and goes over to one of the sinks to wash her dried… _fluids_ from her hand and to fix herself in the mirror.

            She’s never even _thought_ about sex up until this moment in her life. Sure, she’s run across sex scenes on TV and in movies, and one of her Muggle books had a fairly graphic erotic segment, but she usually disinterestedly switches the channel or flips past the pages. Levi’s statement in her third year – the suggestion that she might be asexual – had stuck, and she was certain that she was incapable of even being interested in sex. But now she’s not entirely sure. And now there’s Levi himself to contend with. It might not have been awkward to look him in the eye just after he’d pleasured her, his pupils blown wide with his own restrained arousal, but what about in a few minutes? A few hours? Are they going to be able to laugh about this? Will they cringe?

            Will Levi want to do it again?

            That particular question makes her hands stutter as they reach for the soap. Perhaps the more pressing question is if _she_ will want to do it again, but she can’t seem to find the idea of her suddenly discovering her own sexuality as horrible as the thought of Levi cornering her in an empty corridor and rubbing her through her robes until she comes apart.

            Well, maybe _horrible_ isn’t the right word for it.

            She finishes washing her hands and dries them with a hot air charm, then starts to try to make herself look more presentable. Her collar is askew, revealing quite a nasty-looking hickey on the left side of her neck. It’s bleeding a little bit from Levi’s teeth.

            _Blood_.

            She’s suddenly knocked back into who and what she is. She’s Muggle-born and Levi is a pureblood; that’s not going to go over smoothly if news of either her blood status or this encounter comes out. Knowing what she does about his uncle Kenny, she honestly fears for Levi more than she fears for herself, and that’s what prompts her to say:

            “This didn’t happen.”

            In the mirror she sees Levi stiffen. His hands are resolutely at his sides, probably to keep from jerking one out right in front of her, and they tighten into fists at her words.

            “Of course,” he says.

            “That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful, but… We can’t let anyone know this happened.”

            “But it _didn’t_ happen.”

            “Good job.”

            She casts a concealment charm on the hickey and a few other spells to straighten out her hair and unwrinkle her clothes, then promptly walks out of the room to give Levi some privacy. True to his word, he emerges from the bathroom in less than thirty seconds, hands freshly scoured and hair unmussed. Zoralee briefly wonders what it would feel like to run her hands through his hair and starts to regret not tangling her fingers in it as she came. Maybe next time.

            _No_ , she chastises herself as they walk to the hospital wing in silence. _There will be no next time_.

            Talking to Madam Pomfrey is an incredibly awkward endeavor, especially when the Mediwitch manages to look halfway between smug and disapproving the whole time Zoralee is explaining the incident. But, despite the awkwardness, both Zoralee and Levi (who had managed to get a bit of ginseng on his fingers when he was pleasuring her) receive the antidote and down the potion quickly, disregarding the foul taste. Madam Pomfrey goes back into her office to file yet another incident report.

            “The only times I’ve been in here are for quidditch injuries,” Levi says, sitting beside Zoralee on a hospital bed. “And I tried to cast _engorgio_ on my dick in my first year, so that landed me a bed.”

            It’s not awkward, Zoralee discovers. There’s a spark of tension now, but she thinks that that’s been there for a while now and she just hasn’t noticed. But it’s not awkward, and the girl wants to scream that fact from Gryffindor tower in delight.

            “That sounds… painful,” she responds.

            “Oh, it was. I was very popular for a good day or two. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard about it from Farlan or Izzy.”

            “They haven’t talked to me since my first year, so.”

            He’s silent for a moment, and then:

            “Do you want to make them hate you even more?”

            She scoffs. “Is that a warning or a proposition?”

            “A proposition,” he says. “I know this isn’t exactly the best timing, considering I just had my fingers in you.”

            Zoralee goes red. “That didn’t happen.”

            “Right. Anyway, would you do me the honor of going to the Yule Ball with me?”

            She almost chokes on air. _The honor_ , he’d said. She knows for a fact that just about every Slytherin girl who goes for guys, every Slytherin _guy_ who goes for guys, and even quite a few non-Slytherin people drool over Levi. _She’s_ the one who should feel honored.

            But that nagging pain comes back into her head. People are going to find out that she’s Muggle-born sooner or later; they’ll have to if she wants to change anyone’s mind. But before she manages to change anyone’s mind she’s going to get hurt and, if he gets too close, so is Levi. His friends will call him a blood traitor and abandon him, his uncle will probably use the cruciatus curse on him, and he’ll be all alone. She can’t do that to him, so the only thing she can do is refuse.

            “No,” she says.

            He quirks a brow. “Why not?”

            She hesitates before saying: “It’s complicated.”

            “I knew it. You’re after Jaeger’s ass.”

            “I am _not_ after Jaeger’s ass. If I’m after anyone’s ass it’s Fleur Delacour’s. Have you _seen_ her?”

            Levi laughs and, just like at the beginning of her third year, she decides she likes the sound of it.

            “Are you gonna go to the ball, at least?” he asks.

            “I don’t know. I’m definitely staying here over Christmas, so I probably will. I’ll probably get Armin to take me now that we’re all back on speaking terms.”

            “So you’ll let a guy with a mushroom haircut take you but not me?”

            “Something like that, yeah.”

            Levi chuckles again and a small, easy smile stays on his face even after he’s stopped. She’s never seen him quite so relaxed. She doesn’t know if it’s the result of an orgasm or her presence, but she likes to think it’s the latter.

            “I’ll save you a dance, though,” she says after a bit of deliberation. “If you want it.”

            He nods. “I’ll take you up on that offer.”

            When she looks at him now she notices the way the sunlight shines in his hair and lights up his skin, how his eyes are like gunmetal even though he probably has no idea what gunmetal is. And he’s patient, and he’s kind, and he’s a real bigot a lot of the time, but she comes to the quick conclusion that this is a boy worth redeeming.

            _It’s going to be hell when I hurt you_ , she thinks. She’s not looking forward to everything collapsing.

~

            She does end up getting Armin to take her to the Yule Ball.

            It isn’t hard to convince him. She knows he’d rather be Eren’s date (he’s starting to be really obvious is his affection for the other boy), but Eren is taking Mikasa, so he probably thinks of Zoralee as a good second choice. Being second to Eren doesn’t bother her like she thought it might.

            She goes with Mikasa to Hogsmeade to find a shop called Gladrags Wizardwear. Together they pick out gowns for the ball and Zoralee enjoys herself so much it surprises her. Afterwards they go to the Three Broomsticks, where Zoralee notices Levi sitting by himself. After a moment of anxious indecision she approaches him and asks him if he’d like to sit with them, even though she figures that he’ll refuse the company of a Gryffindor like Mikasa. Surprisingly, he doesn’t refuse. The three of them scoot into a booth and order butterbeers (well, Zoralee just gets a glass of pumpkin juice) and Levi talks with Mikasa with great civility. Zoralee watches them intently as she sips her pumpkin juice. When it’s time to head back to the castle they all walk back together, Mikasa and Levi talking animatedly about quidditch.

            When the night of the ball (Christmas night, incidentally) comes around Zoralee gets ready with the rest of the Slytherin girls, who take a few opportunities to call her a blood traitor. She pays them no mind as she smears makeup across her face and slips on her dress – it’s black like the jumper she wore to Diagon Alley before her second year, and she thinks Levi might get a bit of amusement out of it – and slips on her shoes. Armin meets her outside the Slytherin common room, his dress robes immaculate. When he sees her his eyes widen.

            “Zoralee, you look fantastic!” he exclaims.

            She shrugs. She’s never really thought of herself as very pretty or exceedingly ugly. She’s always just _been_.

            “Thank you,” she says.

            “If I were straight…”

            She looks him up and down. His blue eyes shine in excitement and he’s pulled the top layer of his hair back into a small ponytail.

            “If _I_ were straight,” she says, and that draws a little laugh from Armin’s chest.

            They walk to the Great Hall together, Armin steadying Zoralee when she wobbles in her high heels. Eventually she gets the hang of them and no longer has to hang off her date’s arm. They find Eren and Mikasa in the entrance hall, Eren in his dress robes and Mikasa in her red dress. Armin’s breath hitches when he catches sight of Eren, but he quickly schools himself back under control.

            “Hey, Armin!” Eren calls. “I thought you were taking-“

            She can see the boy’s Caribbean eyes widen even from afar. When she and Armin are finally beside Eren and Mikasa, Eren speaks as if he’s just been punched in the stomach.

            “ _Zoralee?_ ” he asks. She nods. “I hardly recognized you.”

            “That much is obvious,” she scoffs.

            “I’m serious! You look really good.”

            An embarrassed flush creeps up her neck and she looks away.

            “Thank you,” she says. “Can we just go in now? I hear there’s food.”

            They all laugh and Zoralee forgets about the compliments they’ve paid her, instead slipping back into a more comfortable place in her head.

            The night goes relatively smoothly. Apparently Eren wasn’t told that he’d have to do an elaborate dance, so that’s fun to watch. Dumbledore and McGonagall share a dance, Snape stands in a corner and sneaks grapes from the food table when he thinks no one is looking, Hagrid dances with the half-giantess headmistress of Beauxbatons, and over the course of the night Armin drinks the three butterbeers necessary to get himself tipsy. Because Armin is, apparently, a total lightweight, Zoralee has to help him to a table. When he sits down he groans.

            “I feel weird,” he says. “I can’t think right.”

            “It’s the alcohol,” Zoralee responds as she sits down beside him, surprised that she’s not having a panic attack at the smell of the substance that rolls off him in waves.

            He turns to face her. “You’re really pretty,” he slurs.

            “Thank you.”

            “I _mean_ it. None of us really noticed it before tonight. But you’re easily one of the prettiest girls here.” He wrinkles his nose. “Do I sound too straight? I didn’t mean to sound straight.”

            She laughs and thanks him again, telling him that she understands what he means. Just as she’s about to tell him that any guy would be lucky to have him as a boyfriend, she feels more than hears someone stop in front of them.

            She’s had the revelation before, and she’s thought about it every day since he helped her get through the Ginseng Incident, but as he stands before her in his crisp black dress robes she can’t help but realize all over again that Levi is almost stunningly attractive. He has high cheekbones, pale skin, dark hair cut into an undercut that would probably look ridiculous on anyone else, and those gunmetal eyes that can look right through her. She actually looks somewhat like him, with her icy blue eyes and black hair; one time a Hufflepuff first year came up to the pair and asked if they were related. Levi may be regrettably short, but so is Zoralee, and that makes him just the right height for her to lean up and-

            She stops that thought before it can start and, instead, sends a friendly smile Levi’s way. He returns it gently and Armin looks like he knows something she doesn’t.

            “Hey,” she says.

            “I believe you promised me a dance,” Levi says.

            She looks at Armin. “Will you be okay here by yourself?”

            He waves her off. “Go. Dance. Have fun.”

            She almost ruffles her friend’s blonde hair but thinks better of it when she remembers the ponytail he’s put it in. Levi holds his hand out to her and she takes it, standing up gracefully before letting him lead her back out onto the dance floor.

            “Armin and I only danced once, so I don’t really know how to-“ she begins, but Levi cuts her off.

            “I know how. I’ll show you.”

            “Thank God.”

            The corner of his mouth tilts up and he places one of her hands on his shoulder and takes the other in his own. He then positions his other hand on her waist. A deep shiver runs through her. Levi quirks a brow.

            “You good?”

            “Yeah,” she says quickly. “I’m not really used to people touching me all that often.”

            He nods, hopefully buying it, and then gives her a quick verbal run-down of how to do the rather complicated dance everyone seems to know already. As the next song starts up he tries to take off with her in tow, and she steps on his foot. They try again with marginally more success, but Zoralee inevitably steps on his foot again, and then they’re both laughing.

            Levi, she learns, is a fantastic dancer. He may be no prima ballerina, but he’s light on his feet and every bit as graceful on the dancefloor as he is on the quidditch pitch. His easy movements are nothing like the stuttering steps she takes. They’re not very well-matched for dancing, but Levi seems to enjoy himself snickering at her, so she pays no mind to her little insecurity. Eventually she kind of gets the hang of the dance, able to anticipate the next step. When Levi lifts her she feels like she’s flying in more ways than one.

            When the song is over several couples leave the floor, but nearly everyone runs back out into the crowd when they see the band taking the place of the orchestra. The band – The Weird Sisters, she’s heard them called – strikes up a loud rock song and everyone loses their minds.

            Levi’s hands are still on her. He’s still _looking_ at her, face unreadable. He doesn’t seem to want to let go, but, since she’d promised herself that she’s not going to let him get too close, Zoralee steps away. Something crosses Levi’s eyes but he quickly plays it off.

            “Don’t like The Weird Sisters?” he asks.

            She listens for a moment and decides that she does like the band, but she doesn’t exactly like dancing in the way everyone else is dancing to the new music, and she tells him so. He nods in understanding, then opens his mouth to speak.

            “Do you-“ he begins.

            Zoralee feels a hand on her shoulder and she promptly turns around, effectively interrupting Levi. Armin is the one standing behind her, and he looks positively green.

            “Merlin, Armin,” Zoralee says. “Are you feeling okay?”

            He shakes his head and winces at the motion. “The butterbeers aren’t agreeing with me. Too much alcohol and too much sugar.”

            “Do you need to go back to your common room?”

            “That would be really nice.”

            “I’ll take you. I don’t want you stumbling all over the place.” She turns back to Levi. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

            Her dancing partner nods and she wraps an arm around Armin’s shoulders to help him walk.

            The walk to Ravenclaw Tower is slow-going with all the breaks Armin has to take to keep himself from vomiting, but they eventually make it. Her friend tries to give her a friendly kiss on the cheek but misses and knocks his head against her shoulder, so Zoralee promptly sends him off to bed and tells him to drink plenty of water. She hastily walks back in the direction of the Great Hall, but before she turns the corner into the entrance hall she sees Levi standing alone at the end of the corridor. He’s leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. When he looks up from the floor he seems to have to suppress a smile. He starts walking over to Zoralee and she meets him in the middle of the corridor.

            “What are you doing out here?” she asks.

            He shrugs. “Waiting for you.”

            Her heart fucking _flutters_. “You didn’t have to.”

            “I kind of did. I wanted to get you alone.” He seems to realize what he’s insinuated, because he adds the next part very quickly. “Not like that.”

            “Just to talk to me, right?”

            “Right.”

            “Well, we’re alone.”

            It’s true. There is no one else in the corridor with them, although muffled conversations and distant music can be heart coming from the Great Hall. She has a sudden flashback to when she was washing up after their oddly utilitarian tryst in the entrance hall bathroom, when she pictured Levi cornering her in an empty corridor and pressing his knee between her thighs. But his gaze is gentle and not at all predatory, so she doesn’t feel cornered. She feels just as comfortable around him as she does around Armin or Eren or Mikasa. Maybe even more comfortable.

            _Except for the fact that you have to come up with lies about your blood status_ , her conscience reminds her.

            She swallows. “What did you want to talk about?”

            He’s silent for a few moments, looking anywhere but her and drumming his fingers against his thigh. _He’s nervous_ , she realizes, and wonders why the hell _she_ of all people would make him, the boy well-known to be the Slytherin sex god, nervous.

            His words come out in a rush.

            “Youlookreallyprettytonight,” he manages, then winces.

            She has to process this for a second, but when the words untangle themselves she falters. He’s never given her much in the way of compliments, unless you count his off-hand comment about how she’s improving with wizard’s chess and the quick orgasm he reached in the bathroom after he fingered her.

            “What?” she asks.

            “I said you look really shitty tonight. Goodbye.”

            He makes to leave but she catches him by the wrist.

            “No, you said I look pretty,” she says.

            “Then why did you fucking _ask?_ ”

            “Because I was surprised, that’s all.” She swallows. “Thank you.”

            He shrugs stiffly and she lets go of his wrist.

            “Was that it?” she asks.

            He shakes his head. “No, that’s not…” He trails off and closes his eyes. “I’m not good at this.”

            “Obviously not.”

            “Thanks,” he says a bit dryly, but it doesn’t come out in a scoff like it normally would. “Okay, I…”

            He raises his lids and looks at her, and his eyes soften when they gaze into hers.

            _Oh_.

            He’s nervous because he’s trying to confess to her.

            Her heart screams _yes!_ and _no!_ simultaneously. The yes part is a mystery to her considering she doesn’t actually like him like that, but the no part is clear as day – she’s going to hurt him one day when her blood status comes out, already _is_ hurting him by pretending to be a pureblood. Her head screams _no!_ too, and that overrides any strange relief or happiness in her gut.

            “I really like-“

            “Don’t,” she interrupts him.

            “It’s not like I can _help_ myself, Reaper,” he says, sounding as close to desperate as she’s ever heard him.

            “You can’t- _We_ can’t-“

            “So you’re not opposed to the idea of-“

            “ _No_ , I’m not,” she says before she can even think about it. “It’s just that we can’t.”

            “Why not? Is this because of you being some kind of blood traitor? I’ve already told you that I don’t bloody care about that anymore. I haven’t cared about that since I was fourteen.”

            “No. It’s not that.”

            “Then give me a good reason why. Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t give it a try and I’ll let it go.”

            Her mouth goes very dry. She opens her mouth to speak but no words come out. Something crosses Levi’s face and he forces his voice to be gentler.

            “Do you not want to do… things? We don’t have to do anything like that until you’re ready. We don’t _ever_ have to do them if you don’t want to. I’m not going to force you into anything.”

            And just like when she was in the Shrieking Shack confronting Sirius the previous year, she spots an opening. It calls out to her, begs her to take this chance and run with it, to let herself have what she wants for once.

            But she can’t.

            She shakes her head.

            “Then what is it?” Levi asks.

            A deep breath. She’s so done with this, with the secrets. Let all of Slytherin know.

            “I’m Muggle-born.”

            And she’s said it. No more secrets or lies or evasions. No more begging Eren with her eyes to keep quiet about what she’d said to Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets.  It’s out in the open now, and her shoulders slump in relief. It’s like a huge weight has been lifted from them.

            But then Levi’s face changes again and the weight comes crashing back down on her, twice as heavy as before.

            “I’m sorry,” she breathes.

            Levi takes a step back and just _looks_ at her.

            “You’re… Muggle-born,” he finally says, like he’s trying to wrap his tongue around the words. She doesn’t like the way he says them.

            She nods stiffly, not trusting her voice.

            “I touched a mudblood,” he says.

            She flinches at the slur. “My blood’s no different than yours. I bleed just as red as you do.”

            He’s angry now, fists clenching and trembling at his sides, but he keeps his voice even. “If it’s no different than mine then why did you hide it from me?”

            She swallows, and when she speaks her words come out slowly, carefully. “I thought that if I told you once we were friends then you might change your mind about Muggle-borns.”

            “So you’ve just been manipulating me this whole time? Trying to be my friend just to bring me over into the light?”

            “No. I genuinely like you.”

            “Even though I hate your breed.”

            “I’m not a _breed!_ ” she snaps. “I’m just as much of person as you are.”

            “Like hell you are,” he hisses, composure finally splintering. “Your kind is scum on the magical pond! And _you_ lied to me! You tricked me into-“

            He breaks off with a strained, odd, breathless little laugh. She’s thought she liked his laugh before, but this particular one makes her stomach drop.

            “You know what? Fuck you. I can’t believe this,” he says. “Enjoy your stint in hell, mudblood.”

            The word rolls off his tongue so stiltedly that tears prick behind her eyes, but she won’t let them fall. She refuses to cry over this boy, this horrible boy who she still thinks is worth redeeming. Levi turns on his heel and begins walking down the corridor towards the Great Hall. He probably has a date to get back to, a pretty pureblood girl who hates people like her and won’t break his heart like she has, because Zoralee knows she’s broken his heart – Levi may be all quidditch muscle and shit jokes but he’s _soft_. His date must be a girl who’s wealthy and smart and willing to put out for him because he’s _Levi Ackerman_ , the most desired boy in Slytherin house and possibly all of Hogwarts despite his odd stance on blood traitors.

            And he’d wanted Zoralee. _Zoralee_ , the supposed blood traitor and best friend of the Gryffindor golden boy, was the one he’d wanted, and she’d taken his heart and torn it to bits in front of him.

            She doesn’t remember taking off her shoes or even starting to walk down the corridor, but she soon finds herself back in front of the Slytherin common room holding her shoes by the heels. She gives the password – it’s _pureblood_ , ironically – and walks in to find several Slytherin seventh years sitting on the couches, a smuggled bottle of firewhiskey sitting on the coffee table. When she starts to turn toward her assigned dormitory someone laughs out her last name.

            “What is it?” she asks. She’s so _tired_. All she wants to do is get into her pajamas and go to bed.

            “I heard Levi Ackerman was gonna fuckin’ propose to you tonight!” It’s Hitch Dreyse, a chaser on the Slytherin quidditch team. “Did that happen or what?”

            “No,” she says. “That didn’t happen.”

            Hitch hums and takes a swig of her firewhiskey, wincing at the burn. “Disappointing. Flitwick told me there’s a betting pool with the professors.”

            “A betting pool regarding what?”

            “It started out by being about when he was gonna fuck you, but it morphed into when he was gonna ask you to be his girlfriend.”

            Another painful stab to the heart.

            She doesn’t know how long she’s going to be able keep her composure, so she opts to hurry into her dormitory without commenting on the raucous laughter that bursts out behind her. When she finally gets into her dormitory there’s no one else there, so she charms the makeup off her face, gets into her pajamas, and crawls into bed. She usually doesn’t draw the curtains around the four poster, but tonight she does. She yanks the green drapes closed and huddles into herself under the blankets.

            She stays awake for a long time, flashing back to the look on Levi’s face and the vicious words that left his mouth. She hears all the other girls come in after the ball is over, hears the excited, happy chatter and rustling fabric. She hears someone mention how “dreamy” Levi looked in his dress robes. Eventually all the noise dies down, replaced only by light, girlish snoring and even breathing.

            It’s only then, after she casts a silencing charm on her curtains, that she allows herself to cry for Levi Ackerman.

~

            The rest of the Christmas holiday is hellish. Armin and Mikasa get permission to visit their families for a few days via the Floo Network, Eren is busy staring at his dragon egg and begging Hagrid for help, and Zoralee feels too strange to talk to any of them anyway. That would normally leave Levi, whom she finds to be a very good listener despite how insignificant her complaints may be, but now she doesn’t even have him. She rarely goes into the common room, instead staying in her bed and reading and rereading _Hogwarts: A History_ until she can anticipate the gist of the next paragraph. Whenever she does go into the common room Levi is there, chatting with Isabel while he kicks Farlan’s ass at wizard’s chess, so she hurriedly leaves and makes a few laps around the castle.

            It’s during one of these laps that she decides she needs somewhere more private than the relatively busy Hogwarts halls and her bed, somewhere she can actually be alone rather than just pretending to be. She’s passing by the portrait of Barnabus the Barmy on the seventh floor when the thought comes to her, and just as it enters her mind she hears an odd crackling sound coming from the wall. She turns around to see a thicket of swirling vines undulating on the stone. She watches for several moments as the vines push out and darken until they solidify into an ornate door.

            She’s glad she’s been reading _Hogwarts: A History_ like a religious text, because, otherwise, she might have forgotten all about the Room of Requirement.

            She thanks whatever god there is and pulls open the door. Inside, the room is relatively small. A double bed dressed with flannel sheets is tucked into the corner, a desk sits at the foot of the bed, a comfortable-looking chair rests in front of the desk, and a stack of pre-cut pieces of parchment sits on the desktop, along with a couple of nice-looking quills and a pot of dark ink. A bookcase stuffed with thick books and folders of sheet music stands beside a large window that looks out over the grounds, and sitting in front of the window is an upright piano with gleaming ivory keys.

            She decides that it’s absolutely perfect as she lets the door click closed.

~

            She writes to Lupin.

            She knows he’s probably very busy trying to help Sirius, but she doesn’t have anyone else to turn to. None of her friends are available, Dumbledore is too busy going about his business as headmaster, Snape hates her and will probably let her blood status slip to the whole school if she brings it up – now that she thinks about it, it’s a little strange that _Levi_ hasn’t outed her yet – there’s something off about Moody, and she doesn’t know any of her other professors well enough to trust them with her problems. She supposes she could talk to McGonagall, but she’s nearly as busy as Dumbledore, and there’s no way she’ll ever drag her parents into this, so that leaves either Sirius or Lupin. She’s a bit wary of writing to Sirius because she doesn’t want the Ministry to get wind of his location, plus they don’t know each other all that well and have few to no ties to each other. So that leaves Lupin.

            She gets a response before the school term starts back up. The only solid, useful thing he leaves her with is the offer to keep up the correspondence, an offer which she quickly decides to accept. Otherwise, he tells her things she heard from her parents when she’d told them about the bullies at her Muggle school in her pre-Hogwarts years, things like “you have to be the bigger person” and “if he really hates you for such an insignificant reason then he’s not worth crying over.”

            The thing is that Levi _is_ worth crying over. He’s not heartless, and she knows that because every time she catches a glimpse of him he looks worn out and depressed. He’s not angry anymore, she realizes. He’s _hurt_. And if he has the capacity to mourn the loss of his friend and the object of his affections then he’s worth everything in the world.

            When school begins again in January she throws herself into her studies. She uses the Room of Requirement as a safe space, a quiet place to study or read or play the piano (which she does a lot now) or write letters to Lupin. As the second task grows nearer and Eren finally deciphers the screeching contents of his egg she contorts the room into a library of rare or restricted books, hoping to find something on how to breathe underwater. She finds the bubblehead charm and asks Flitwick to help her with it so she can teach it to Eren, but he brightly tells her that’s cheating and sends her on her way. Eren doesn’t accept her help until the night before the task anyway, and by then it’s too late to learn the charm. She settles for filching some gillyweed from the potions cupboard when Snape steps out of his office to use the bathroom. Dangerous, but worth it.

            The second task thrust upon the four champions is to rescue someone dear to them from the depths of the Black Lake, which is, according to a bit of research on Zoralee’s part, populated by merpeople. Armin surfaces first, but Eren does not follow. Erwin is next, his friend Mike in tow. Next comes Delacour, but she was unable to complete the task, so she returns to the surface alone. Krum, who had transfigured his head into that of a shark, is next, bringing none other than Mikasa with him. When the hour is up Eren still hasn’t returned. Zoralee nervously fiddles with her wand as she listens to Erwin and Krum talk to Dumbledore and Crouch. Apparently Eren had been trying to save everyone and even helped them free their friends (or, in Krum’s case, obvious crush), and none of the merpeople were particularly pleased about it. Fleur paces back and forth across the floating platform, muttering worried things about her sister, who is still at the bottom of the lake. Suddenly a young girl’s head breaks the surface of the water, and the girl is followed shortly thereafter by a coughing and spluttering Eren.

            Armin, Zoralee, and Mikasa race to the edge of the platform to pull Eren from the water while Fleur helps her sister. Madam Pomfrey wraps a thick blanket around the boy and administers a pepper-up potion while Dumbledore and Crouch confer, and then the headmaster sticks his wand to the side of his own throat and announces in a booming voice that Erwin has won the task, but Eren has garnered himself second place. Armin high fives his friend and Erwin slaps Eren on the back in a way that’s so friendly Zoralee can’t help but crack a smile.

            The next day Zoralee writes to Lupin about the results of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. She tells him about the tasks and their winners; she tells him about how Eren is tied for third place with Fleur, but, because of how the point system works, the champion who wins the last task will win the whole competition, so he still has a chance to win. She also tells him about how things are going at school socially, like Armin and Eren’s ridiculous feud at the beginning of the year, and how Victor Krum has taken a liking to Mikasa, spending more time with her than with his Durmstrang peers. Lupin, in turn, responds by telling her that Snuffles (whom she deduces to be Sirius) is settling into his old family home quite nicely and how Lupin himself is crashing with him until he can find a job that won’t discriminate against him because of his condition. Zoralee suspects that he’ll be living with Sirius for a great deal longer.

            She never mentions Levi in any letters after her first one. To be fair, she never actually mentioned his name in the first letter, but the implication was still there and she’s certain that Lupin is smart enough to figure out who she meant. She doesn’t mention him because she doesn’t even like to think about him. Whenever her mind goes down that path it leads to tears, and she doesn’t particularly enjoy feeling weak enough to cry. Still, she sees him around in passing, in the common room or in the halls. Once she finds him snogging Petra Ral, a Hufflepuff fifth-year, in a broom cupboard, but neither seem to notice her presence, so she quietly backs out.

            The news that notorious playboy Levi Ackerman is dating sunny Petra Ral spreads across Hogwarts like wildfire. It’s exceedingly unlike Levi to have an actual girlfriend; from what she knows of his reputation (because they never talked about it when they were friends), he prefers to have regular fuckbuddies and one-time trysts. The relationship captures the hearts and the imaginations of the whole school. It’s seen as a real testament to school unity because Slytherins so rarely associate with people outside their own house. People also say that it’s a testament to the power of love itself – Levi was never interested in love before Petra, and now here he is, dating someone so full of sunshine it’s blinding. They say opposites attract, and Levi and Petra are certainly opposites in nearly every sense of the phrase.

            At least, that’s what everyone says, but Zoralee knows better. She knows that Levi, while not exactly a rainbows and unicorns type of person, can be full of kindness, just like Petra. She knows he’s sensitive and strong, just like Petra. She knows he believes in blood purity but has no problem with purebloods who don’t, just like Petra. Everyone also says that they look so happy and in love, but Zoralee knows better than that, too. Every time she sees Levi with Petra the latter has a gentle, enamored smile on her face, but Levi only returns the expression when his girlfriend is looking; otherwise his face looks bored, and those eyes look spectacularly miserable.

            Zoralee has the sinking suspicion that he’s only dating Petra to get over her.

            With classes and homework and corresponding with Lupin and hiding in the Room of Requirement, the third task comes up like an exceptionally silent freight train. A week before the task is scheduled to take place, Hagrid takes the champions down to the quidditch pitch to explain the details. Eren later explains to the three of them – Zoralee, Armin, and Mikasa – that the next task is to be a hedge maze littered with dangerous magical creatures and housing the Tri-Wizard Cup in the center. The first one to the cup wins the tournament. Eren has always been brilliant in his Defense Against the Dark Arts classes (it’s one of his only talents, honestly), but he still asks Armin and Zoralee for help. Mikasa is more of a potions prodigy (much to Snape’s dismay), so she doesn’t offer her assistance.

            The week leading up to the third task is one of the most stressful weeks of Zoralee’s short life. Between attending her classes and doing her homework and prepping for exams she barely has time to bathe, much less help Eren with counter-curses and _aqua eructo_. And yet, somehow, she pulls it off. She barely sleeps, but she pulls it off. Five minutes before they both have to be back in their respective common rooms ( _that’s_ not going to happen given how long the walks are) Eren tells her that he feels ready for whatever might happen the next day, and she believes him.

            But he’s not ready. No one is.

~

            When Eren shows back up at the entrance to the maze, he’s accompanied by Erwin’s body.

            Everyone, including Zoralee, screams in delight before realizing what’s happening. Erwin’s father rushes down to the field and sobs over his son’s corpse, with its open eyes and unmoving chest. Eren himself is sobbing too, blabbering about not leaving him and about how somebody is back, and that’s when it hits her – there are no visible wounds on the body. No visible puncture marks or torn clothing or ripped skin. A magical creature didn’t do this. A killing curse did. Moody quickly whisks Eren away, and Dumbledore leads Snape and McGonagall after them a minute later.

            That night, curfew is not enforced. No prefects patrol the halls and no professors stay up late. Everyone is shocked and emotionally exhausted, so most just go silently to bed as soon as the tournament is over. But not Eren, Armin, Mikasa, and Zoralee. Mikasa lets them all into the Gryffindor common room – which is so much warmer than the Slytherin dungeons – and they sit in front of the fireplace while Eren calms himself down. Eventually the boy is able to tell them that he and Erwin had reached the cup at the same time, but that it had been a portkey. They were teleported into a graveyard where Peter Pettigrew killed Erwin with an _avada kedavra_ and resurrected You-Know-Who using Harry’s blood and his own right hand. Eren says that through a rush of pure adrenaline he was able to hold off You-Know-Who, race back to Erwin’s body, and grab the cup, allowing him to teleport back to the beginning of the maze. He also reveals that Moody wasn’t Moody at all, but Azkaban escapee and Death Eater Barty Crouch, Jr. under the influence of polyjuice potion. They let Eren speak and cry as much as he needs to. God knows he’s been strong, so strong for so long. He deserves to be weak for once. Mikasa and Armin give him hugs while Zoralee gazes unseeingly into the fire.

            Almost nobody but a few professors and Eren’s friends believes that You-Know-Who has returned. Barty Crouch, Jr. can’t give any testimony because he receives a Dementor’s Kiss the day after the tournament. His screams are heard echoing from the dark tower, but Zoralee can’t bring herself to feel sorry for him. Jean starts to tease Eren again, saying that he’s an egotistical git telling ridiculous lies to make himself famous again, but Mikasa’s had enough by that point and just decks the Slytherin boy in the face. McGonagall is there to witness it, but she only takes five points from Gryffindor and Jean to the hospital wing. Mikasa says it’s worth it.

            Dumbledore holds a school-wide funeral for Erwin. Erwin’s father attends, but he’s crying too hard to be able to give much of a eulogy. That leaves the headmaster to deliver a speech, which he does brilliantly. He says that You-Know-Who is back and that he killed Erwin, and even though almost nobody believes him, no one dares say anything to contradict the man. Silence, they think, is the best way to show respect for the dead. Zoralee thinks there is going to be a lot of silence in her fifth year. A lot of silence and looking away and denial.

            Just like at the beginning of the year, a horde of Gryffindors want to hear Eren’s side of the story on the Hogwarts Express, so they try to crowd into his compartment with Armin and Mikasa. Mikasa and Zoralee take to guarding the outside of the compartment to make sure no one bothers the two boys until the train starts to move. Then Mikasa goes into the compartment. She asks if Zoralee is accompanying them this time around, but she reminds herself that while Eren may be _her_ best friend, she’s not necessarily _Eren’s_ best friend. He needs as few people with him as possible, and Zoralee feels that she would be superfluous. So she shakes her head and goes to find an empty compartment.

            The students on the Hogwarts Express are configured a bit differently this time. There are some that look like they want to be left alone, so she leaves them be. Some compartments are packed so full of students that someone has to rest against the skinny windowsill. The combination of single occupants and ten occupants makes sure that there are only two places for Zoralee to sit, both at the back of the train. She stops in front of the first compartment. It’s occupied only by Levi. She briefly considers going into the compartment and telling him she’s sorry again, but then Petra brushes past her with a friendly smile – Levi really must have kept her blood status a secret – and enters the compartment.

            “Would you like to sit with us?” she asks kindly.

            Levi looks up and their eyes meet. There’s still pain there, Zoralee thinks. His silver eyes are no longer clear like molten metal; they’re cloudy like a stormy sky. He levels her with a blank stare and she swallows.

            “No,” Zoralee answers, shaking her head. “Thank you though.”

            “That’s too bad,” Petra says. “Maybe next time!”

            Zoralee shoots Levi a look that assures him that _no_ , she won’t try to sit with him on the train when fall rolls around. He doesn’t react.

            Petra waves her wand and the compartment door closes in Zoralee’s face. Petra mouths an _oops_ before snuggling into Levi’s shoulder like a damn housecat. Levi turns away from the girl outside the compartment and stares miserably out the window.

            Taking a deep breath, she walks across the skinny aisle and goes into the neighboring compartment, closing the door behind her and latching it with a click. She sits down in the corner closest to the window and rests her head on the train wall.

            _Everything is going to change_ , Mikasa had said that morning. Zoralee disagrees. It’s not _going to_ change. It’s already changing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you had to read this you're WEAK. I'm talking to you, Natalie B.
> 
> So, the smutty section goes as follows: Eren basically fails the first task of the tournament because he takes so damn long. But, because he realizes how dangerous the tasks are, Armin starts talking to Eren again. Next, Zoralee is in Potions when Snape, who is still pissed that she saved his life last year, tells Jean that he'll look the other way if he smears ginseng, a very powerful aphrodisiac, on her skin. That happens and Snape belittles her for it (as he is wont to do, the prick), then sends her to Madame Pomfrey without an escort. Zoralee collapses on the stairs out of the dungeon because she can't walk, then suddenly realizes that she doesn't know how to masturbate. Lo and behold, Levi comes along and "helps her out." And by helping her out I mean fingering her in a bathroom in the single most consensual way he could given the situation. After that, Zoralee tells him that they can't let people know this happened, the unspoken reason being that she's Muggle-born and he's a pureblood. Levi gets himself off in a solid thirty seconds once Zoralee leaves the bathroom, and then they go to the hospital wing for the antidote. While in the hospital wing, Levi, understanding that this is very awkward timing, asks her to the Yule Ball. She refuses because she's Muggle-born.


End file.
